Though he’s no stranger to the Grammy Awards, with one win and six more nominations under his belt, Roddy Ricch has declared he’s not so keen on who the Recording Academy have snubbed for nominations in recent years.
During a recent appearance on Kevin Durant’s podcast The ETCs, Ricch touched on the collaborative nature of the modern rap scene, and how he often endeavours to throw his support behind his colleagues. “I feel like everybody got their own lane,” he said, noting that “everybody got their own thing they do.”
In particular, Ricch shouted out Lil Uzi Vert and Lil Baby – the former of whom he’s yet to link up with, but the latter he featured on the track ‘Moved To Miami’ – and said he was annoyed when they weren’t nominated for Grammys of their own.
“When I was talking to the Grammys,” Ricch continued in his chat with Durant, “I was like, ‘Y’all ain’t nominate Uzi for [Best] Rap Album?’ I was tripping on them. Even Lil Baby – y’all ain’t nominate Lil Baby? I’m tripping, ‘cause it’s like, everybody got their own lane, it should be spoken about, it should be talked about more.
“I feel like the n****s now that’s doing shit, like, no disrespect, but we really breaking barriers. We reachin’ different [heights]…”
Take a look at the interview clip below:
Though Ricch didn’t it make it explicitly clear which awards he thinks Uzi and Lil Baby were snubbed for, it’s likely he was making reference to the Best Rap Album category at last year’s Grammys. Both artists released albums in 2020, with Lil Baby’s ‘My Turn’ landing in February, and Uzi’s ‘Eternal Atake’ in March.
Ricch won his first (and currently only) Grammy at last year’s ceremony, taking home the title for Best Rap Performance at the hands of his Nipsey Hussle and Hit-Boy collab, ‘Racks In The Middle’. The track was also nominated for Best Rap Song, while ‘Ballin’’ (a collab with Mustard) was nominated for Best Rap/Sung Performance.
At this year’s Grammys, Ricch was nominated twice for Best Rap Song and Best Melodic Rap Performance, with both ‘The Box’ and ‘Rockstar’ (his team-up with DaBaby) earning nods. The former track was also nominated for Song Of The Year, and the latter for Record Of The Year.
The rapper dropped his second album, ‘Live Life Fast’, earlier this month on Atlantic. In a four-star review, NME said the album “finds Roddy Ricch on a creative upswing”, noting that “his unprecedented composure in the face of gargantuan success is impressive”.