Many people were upset that Adele won the Album of The Year Grammy over Beyonce last weekend, and the Village People’s lead singer Victor Willis is one of them.
He wrote an angry letter to the Recording Academy claiming they have “secret committees” to make sure the top prizes don’t go to black artists like Beyonce and Kendrick Lamar.
TMZ reports that Willis’ letter was directed at Recording Academy president Neil Portnow, demanding he reveal the “secrets.” He claims the secret group was put in place after Lionel Richie beat Bruce Springsteen for the 1985 Album of the Year. Willis writes, “The question is how many African Americans are on that committee? If certain people at the Grammys don’t like who the voters have chosen, a Grammy committee will simply override the voters and subsequently select who they think should win. Like Adele, maybe?”
TMZ says that according to their research: “It does appear there is a secret committee, but from what we can gather, the committee is designed to knock out embarrassing nominations — like, say, Milli Vanilli. However, once the nominations are locked, the voters have the final say … at least that’s what we’ve found.”
The Recording Academy replied to TMZ, saying it has no “secret committees,” and all the info regarding the Nominations Review Committees is on the Grammy Recording Academy website.
Read Willis’ full letter here.
What say you, Roomies? Conspiracy or Nah?
