Lorde Spoke out on Not Being Asked to Perform at the Grammys + Her Dress Had a #TimesUp Message
Lorde had something to say about the lack of female representation on the Grammy stage and wore her #TimesUp support.
Lorde was nominated for Album of the Year at this year’s Grammys and came with a feminist message attached to her dress.
After receiving backlash about the lack of female representation at the 2018 Grammys, with only 11 women winning out of 84 awards and one on camera win, organizers said that women need to “step up.”
Grammys executive producer Ken Ehrlich and Recording Academy President Neil Portnow stated, “These shows are always a matter of choices, and we know we have a box and the box gets full and filled up,” Ehrlich told reporters. “She had a great album, album of the year is a big honor, but there’s no way we can really deal with everybody. Sometimes people get left out that shouldn’t, but on the other hand, we did the best we can to make sure that it’s a representative and balanced show.”
Portnow continued,”I think it has to begin with women who have the creativity in their hearts and their souls who want to be musicians, who want to be engineers, who want to be producers, who want to be part of the industry on an executive level to step up,” he said. “Because I think they would be welcome, I don’t have personal experience of those kinds of brick walls that you face, but I think it’s really a combination — it’s us as an industry making the welcome mat very obvious, creating mentorships, creating opportunities not only for women but for all people who want to be creative and really paying it forward and creating that next generation of artists who feel like they can do anything and say anything. The other thing that’s interesting today in terms of technology is nobody is beholden or stuck in a system where you’ve got just the label as a way to get your music heard. There’s so many opportunities today. So if someone’s passionate about it, doesn’t matter what your gender, genre, geography — do it yourself, take it from your heart and put it out there.”
Grammys producer Ken Ehrlich stated, “She had a great album, album of the year is a big honor, but there’s no way we can really deal with everybody. Sometimes people get left out that shouldn’t, but on the other hand, we did the best we can to make sure that it’s a representative and balanced show.”
Lorde tweeted to fans to attend her Melodrama World Tour. “IF YOU’RE DEBATING WHETHER OR NOT I CAN MURDER A STAGE… COME SEE IT FOR URSELF.”
Her mother followed with a tweet of her own.
this says it all –@nytimes January 26, 2018 pic.twitter.com/R3YdHwieXf
— Sonja Yelich (@sonjayelich1) January 26, 2018
Artists are not letting organizations silence the movement and continue to speak out for the betterment of female representation.
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