After watching his former One Direction mate Harry Styles win his first Grammy, Zayn Malik took to Twitter to share more thoughts on the awards.
In a tweet, Malik said the Recording Academy is “moving in inches and we need to move in miles.”
He explained: “I’m keeping the pressure on & fighting for transparency & inclusion. We need to make sure we are honoring and celebrating ‘creative excellence’ of ALL. End the secret committees. Until then ... #f**kthegrammys.”
Malik’s tweet follows one last week in which he fumed: “F**k the grammys and everyone associated.”
The singer complained “unless you shake hands and send gifts, there’s no nomination considerations. Next year I’ll send you a basket of confectionary.”
When it was pointed out that Malik’s new album Nobody Is Listening was released in January – more than four months after the deadline for eligibility and two months after the nominations were announced, Malik explained: “My tweet was not personal or about eligibility but was about the need for inclusion and the lack of transparency of the nomination process and the space that creates and allows favoritism, racism, and netwokring politics to influence the voting process.”
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Malik has never been recognized with a Grammy nomination – not as a solo artist or while in One Direction. He has released three solo albums and four with One Direction.
On Sunday night, Styles won Best Pop Solo Performance for “Watermelon Sugar.”
During the show, Recording Academy chair Harvey Mason Jr. addressed recent criticism from artists like Malik, The Weeknd and Halsey.
“We hear the cries for diversity, the pleas for representation and the demands for transparency,” he said.
Mason Jr. pleaded with the music community to “work with us, not against us” to rebuild trust in the Recording Academy.
“We might not get it right 100 percent of the time and we certainly won’t be able to make everyone happy,” he said.
Canada’s The Weeknd slammed the Grammys on social media last November after he was left out of the nominations despite having one of the biggest albums of 2020.
“The Grammys remain corrupt,” he tweeted. “You owe me, my fans and the industry transparency…”
In January, The Weeknd told Billboard: “I have three Grammys, which mean nothing to me now, obviously … I suck at giving speeches anyways. Forget awards shows.”
Halsey also criticized the Grammys after being snubbed. “The Grammys are an elusive process. It can often be about behind the scenes private performances, knowing the right people, campaigning through the grapevine, with the right handshake and ‘bribes’ that can be just ambiguous enough to pass as ‘not bribes.’”