Grammy CEO Talks The Weeknd Snub

Grammy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. opened up about The Weeknd deciding to pull out of the Grammys last year after his album After Hours was snubbed.

Mason Jr. told Billboard, “It’s not distracting, it’s understandable. People that make music are passionate people inherently. These [projects] are their babies. When they get upset, it doesn’t affect us or offend us. The perception of the academy and our process is important because it allows us to do the work that we want to do.”

He later said that he believes the best way to deal with issues is for artists to come directly to the Academy. He explained, “Having input from the community is important. Sometimes it might be nice not to hear it always in the press; maybe it’d be nice to get a phone call or a text,” he said. “But regardless of how we get it, it’s important that we evaluate it and find out actionable steps on how to be better. At the end of the day, when our members and our community say, “We’d like to look at something differently and we think there is a new way of doing this, it’s better,’ we listen, and we move.”