At the 65th Annual Grammys in February, there was a huge 50th-anniversary of hip-hop celebration performance. Just recently The Recording Academy announced it would showcase the genre at A GRAMMY Salute to 50 Years of Hip-Hop. However, rap wasn’t always so welcome on the Grammys stage. When the first award for Best Rap Performance was handed out in 1989, its nominees decided to boycott the show because the category wouldn’t be televised. Considering how popular and impactful the music was at the time. This was seen as an incredibly short-sighted decision by the Grammys.
Now, one of the winners of that award, Will Smith a.k.a. The Fresh Prince, is revisiting that boycott with two of the other nominees, groundbreaking pioneers, Salt-N-Pepa. On the Oscar winner’s new podcast, Class of ‘88, the hip-hop legends discussed the riskiness of their boycott and how it set the stage for the genre’s current influence and success.
“As women, we didn’t win any awards at that time at all,” Pepa said. “And as a male-dominated field and taking a chance, we didn’t even know if the Grammys is going to say, ‘You know what? You went against us. You never gon’ be seen.’ But they listened.”
Salt explained that boycotting the Grammys turned out to be “very important” for women, as it was one of the reasons their win in 1995 for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group was televised. “We had no idea that it would actually make an impact for change,” she said
It’s always fun to see Will dip into his rap roots, because you can tell that there’s a part of him that really misses it. He clearly enjoys acting, but his first love was hip-hop. It’s been disappointing that his busy schedule has kept him away from so many of the Hip-Hop 50 celebrations. Hopefully, he has time to show up on the Grammys special. DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince deserve their flowers for being one of the first major crossover acts.
All eight episodes of Class of ‘88 premiere on Oct. 26.