Grammy Prez Tells Women To 'Step Up' As Men Win All But One Televised Award

Sunday night's 60th annual Grammy Awards might have witnessed Kesha rep for the #MeToo movement, but the annual affair saw The Recording Academy hand out all but one award to men during the televised Madison Square Garden event. Most notably, SZA, who scored five nominations, left the ceremony without a single win, leaving many to scratch their heads, particularly on what was set to be a rather emotionally invested night for gender equality.

In an interview with Variety, Neil Portnow hit back at the #GrammysSoMale controversy, saying, "It has to begin with… women who have the creativity in their hearts and souls, who want to be musicians, who want to be engineers, producers, and want to be part of the industry on the executive level… [They need] to step up because I think they would be welcome."

As for the winning female, that title went to Alessia Cara, who scored the Best New Artist accolade, beating out newcomers like SZA, Lil Uzi Vert, Khalid, and Julia Michaels. " I don't have personal experience of those kinds of brick walls that you face but I think it’s upon us — us as an industry — to make the welcome mat very obvious, breeding opportunities for all people who want to be creative and paying it forward and creating that next generation of artists," Neil continued.

Outside of the televised ceremony, only 11 of the 84 winners of the 60th annual Grammy Awards were women. Click here to see the full list of winners from Music's Biggest Night!

Photo: Getty Images


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