Despite skipping the Grammy Awards ceremony in 2023, Drake wins.

Despite purposefully not submitting any music, Drake concluded Sunday night with a Grammy Award. With Future’s “Wait For U,” which also includes Tems, the Toronto rapper took up the prize for Best Melodic Rap Performance. Kendrick Lamar’s “Die Hard,” DJ Khaled’s “Beautiful,” Jack Harlow’s “First Class,” and Latto’s “Big Energy (Live)” were all defeated by Future for the victory.
I Never Liked You, Future’s eighth studio album, was released in April 2022, and it included the song “Wait For U.” On the Billboard Hot 100, the hit single debuted at No. 1. Drake recorded a lot of songs that would have been eligible for the Grammys despite not making any entries. In 2022, he released Her Loss as well as Honestly, Nevermind.

Drake had already withdrawn his song from the 64th Annual Grammy Awards due to his disagreement with the Recording Academy. He has already been nominated for both Best Rap Performance (“Way 2 Sexy”) and Best Rap Album (“Certified Lover Boy”). Going farther back, in a social media post from November 2020, Drake expressed his displeasure with the Recording Academy. He was dissatisfied that The Weeknd’s album After Hours wasn’t nominated for any prizes that year.

When it comes to impactful music and these awards, “I think we should stop allowing ourselves to be shocked every year by the disconnect between them and just accept that what once was the highest form of recognition may no longer matter to the artist that exists now and the ones that come after,” he wrote at the time on Instagram.