Why Jay-Z and Kendrick Lamar's Grammy battle for Album of the Year is worth watching

In many ways, you could think of this year's Grammy Awards as a huge market correction.

This time last year was, after all, when Adele took the crown for Album of the Year over Beyoncé's triumphant and critically acclaimed Lemonade, much to the chagrin of the entire internet. It reignited a tired debate about representation and the Grammys, scrutinizing the awards for how it had long failed to incorporate diversity and artists of color.

This year, however, feels a bit different. There two favorites among the five vying for the Grammys top category, Album of the Year: Jay-Z, for his piercing and revealing autobiographical work on 4:44, and Kendrick Lamar and his work on DAMN, a furious record that's as much a 14-track story as a masterclass display of lyrical dexterity.

This, of course, should seem obvious to any one who paid the least bit of attention to music this year. When talking, critical acclaim and buzz, Kendrick and Jay stood head and shoulders above the rest of the nominees. But, when it comes to the Grammys, the recognition of rap, or even artists of color, has never been so certain.

Just a handful of rap records have won the award over their 60-year history. Outkast last did so last in 2004 with their dual-release of Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, and Lauryn Hill took the same crown in 1998, for The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. But both, you could argue, could be classified as different genres. Speakerboxxx/The Love Below soared off its monumental pop hits, "Hey Ya" and "Roses," and Hill blended rap, neo-soul and R&B to create an almost entirely new sound of its era.

Both 4:44 and DAMN are rap records, ones that traffic heavily in race, identity and current day politics. They may be the best screenshots as to what rap looks like in modern day America. Except these aren't the kind of records that win Grammys. Need I remind you the time that Kendrick's theatrical Good Kid, M.A.A.D City fell to Macklemore's pop-rap debut on The Heist for Best Rap Album in 2014.

The Grammy's problem with recognizing rap is symptomatic of something bigger. They've long been criticized for being an antiquated view of the music industry. When it reduced its number of categories in 2011, it alienated artists who strayed outside traditional verticals of popular music — thus spawning vague new categories like Urban Contemporary just a few years later. It made the Grammys feel more like a popularity contest as opposed to true judge of merit. Those who soared on radio charts were awarded over those who chose to be innovative.

Frank Ocean might have been the best example of this. Just a few years after being snubbed in the album of the year category for his debut hit Channel Orange, which lost to Mumford & Sons' Babel in 2013, Ocean sat out the awards altogether in 2017 releasing two of the most critically acclaimed albums of the year.

“That institution certainly has nostalgic importance,” he told The New York Times. “It just doesn’t seem to be representing very well for people who come from where I come from, and hold down what I hold down.”

He called it his "Colin Kaepernick moment," and it just one of numerous efforts from artists calling on the awards to modernize its way of thinking. Chance The Rapper led an entire internet campaign to get them to recognize streaming services, well into an age where Apple Music or Tidal exclusives had become the new way of releasing music.

When you consider all of this, it makes what happened last year look that much more damning, and thus that's what makes this year's battle at the top of the bill so notable. The mere recognition of DAMN and 4:44 — and Childish Gambino's Awaken, My Love! — as nominees is notable enough. And should one win, it might just be the first visible sign that a tide is shifting when discussing popular music.

But it's not just the battle of Album of the Year, either. A large chunk of the nominees lean heavy on hip-hop and R&B at the expense of mainstream pop staples, and that's probably due to the Grammys announcing sweeping changes to its voting process after last year's debacle. Nearly all of the most prestigious categories include minority artists, and seeing small-yet-soaring names like Khalid, SZA, Daniel Caesar and Cardi B get recognition makes you think that this might be the year the Grammy's got it.

Or, who knows, next year we could be right back where we started.