Thirty minutes into this year’s Grammy Awards telecast, and it was a study in restraint compared to the past few award shows of this season. Host James Corden worked a President Donald Trump reference into a sprawling rap to open the show — and it wasn’t necessarily derogatory. Jennifer Lopez acknowledged that these were challenging times and that art continues to be a unifier when she handed out the Best New Artist trophy.
But the most shocking — and bravest — moment came hours before, on the red carpet. Singer/songwriter Joy Villa showed up with “Trump” emblazoned on the train of her dress, and “Make America Great Again” on the front. She had posted a pic of the dress on her Instagram earlier in the day, along with the message, “My platform is about LOVE.”
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The early part of the ceremony was actually going down quite smoothly, especially as some of the offhanded comments weren’t totally inaccurate. Corden rapped that “with Trump we don’t know what’s coming next”; J-Lo stressed the importance of the artist’s voice during trying times, which could be taken as a dig against Trump or not.
The latter note about artists’ voices is most interesting: If there’s an awareness that artists can calm, there must, too, be an awareness that they can alarm. Many have been working overtime to prove that point of late by calling for unrest, encouraging their fan base to join in the rousing chorus of #NotMyPresident, and so much more.
Related: The Oh-So Political Grammy Awards
Ninety minutes into this year’s Grammy telecast, that was still about it. Acceptance speeches were largely just that. Sure, there was the occasional quip about all of us “being someone from somewhere,” but that was fairly veiled, and most important of all, not a pointed assault on the commander-in-chief. Corden made a live tweeting joke and Katy Perry shouted “No hate” at the end of her performance. Again, subtle and restrained, at least compared to past Hollywood awards shows.
With a tribute to the Bee Gees, and the film “Saturday Night Fever” in particular, this year’s Grammys would seemingly follow Lady Gaga’s lead from the Super Bowl last week by leaving politics off the table and making music front and center. In fact, Gaga’s duet with rock band Metallica was more of the pop star showing she was not to be underestimated; again, she said nothing divisive — but she sang, danced, and banged her head.
Truly, all was well until A Tribe Called Quest took the stage. Dedicating their performance to everyone “out there” asking for politicians to represent them, the group began harmlessly enough. Midway through, however, Trump was referred to repeatedly as “President Agent Orange” by Busta Rhymes. It all culminated with many people taking the stage, “foreigners all,” as Q-Tip shouted “resist” repeatedly.
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Watch the clip a few times. The crowd seemed remarkably disinterested, and showed 10 times more enthusiasm for Adele’s tribute to George Michael — even if there was a noticeable mistake.
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If only others followed the lead of Joy Villa, who showed pure courage, we might just finally begin moving forward. “Resist” does not suggest we will.
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