On Thursday, Billboard announced its nominees for the annual Billboard Music Awards. This year’s ceremony will air live at Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles and will include fan-voted categories for Top Social Artist and Top Collaboration. Because y’all know how we get down ‘round this way, let’s go ahead and get into the Blackity-black nominees, shall we?
Perhaps making up for the major Grammy snub earlier this year, The Weeknd secured a whopping 16 nominations, including but not limited to: Top Radio Song, Top Hot 100 Song, Top Artist, Top Male Artist, Top Streaming Songs Artists and Top R&B Album.
Following close behind was the late rapper Pop Smoke, who received 11 nominations for Top Rap Album, Top Rap Male Artist, Top Rap Artist, Top New Artist and more.
Megan Thee Stallion was recognized for Top Female Artist, Top Rap Female Artist and Top Song Sales Artist. Her hit singles “WAP” and “Savage” also walked away with nominations for Top Rap Song, Top Selling Song and Top Streaming Song.
Champagne Papi aka Drake got five nominations for Top Artist, Top Male Artist, Top Billboard 200, Top Billboard 100 and Top Streaming Songs Artist.
Rapper Saweetie scored a nom for Top Rap Female Artist with her “Best Friend” collaborator Doja Cat also being recognized for Top New Artist, Top R&B Artist, Top R&B Female Artist, Top R&B Song, and Top R&B Album—which I mean, okay. Sure. Though I definitely think some recognition in the Pop category would make more sense, seeing as how you could go almost nowhere without hearing Doja’s music blasting. Unfortunately, we climb this mountain every year when it comes to Black artists and how these music awards shows tend to categorize them so I won’t hold my breath waiting on them to change any time soon (even though it’s beyond time that they do.)
Major congrats are in order for DaBaby, who secured nominations for Top 100 Artist, Top Streaming Songs Artist, Top Rap Artists and Top Rap Album. His collaboration with Roddy Rich “Rockstar” was also recognized with four nominations including Top 100, Top Streaming, Top Collaboration, and Top Rap Song.
Speaking of collabs, Chris Brown and Young Thug’s “Go Crazy” apparently made the folks at Billboard go somewhat crazy with the love; the hit song secured four nominations for Top 100, Top Radio, Top Collaboration, and Top R&B Song.
Let’s also pop bottles for the additional artists recognized, including: Juice WRLD, Lil Baby, Jhené Aiko, SZA, Cardi B, Tasha Cobbs Leonard, Koryn Hawthorne, Kirk Franklin and Kanye West.
The 2021 BBMAs will air live May 23 at 8 p.m. ET only on NBC. To see the full list of nominees, head on over to billboardmusicawards.com.