The 61st annual Grammys was held on February 10th, 2019, hosted by Alicia Keys. Of course, what’s an award show without a little celebrity drama?

This year, the Grammys had several issues with several artists. One in specific being young singer, Ariana Grande. Grande first backed out of performing in the show due to disagreement with one of the award shows producers; Ken Ehrlich. Other artists including Drake, Childish Gambino, and Kendrick Lamar also opted out of performing for unknown reasons.

Grandes Grammy drama didn’t end there. After ex boyfriend Mac Miller’s nomination; producers flew out the artists family to accept the Grammy, should he win. The artist had passed months before. However, Miller lost to artist Cardi B, and Grande was outspokenly upset. She took her anger to Twitter by posting upsetting tweets, which were quickly deleted. Cardi B has since deleted her Instagram.

Though not present to accept it, Grande won a Grammy for Best Pop Vocal Album.

March is known as “Black History Month”, and the producers at the Grammys were certain to speak out about it. Many were quick to criticize Jennifer Lopez after being chosen to give a Motown Tribute, due to the fact that she is not black. People believe producers had a plethora of black artists that could have done the tribute justice.

On a more positive note, people were very pleased to see the number of female nominations on the list this year. In the 2018 Grammys award show, many took notice to the handful of accused sexist moves. Lorde was the only female nominated for album of the year, and Alessia Cara was the only female to win a solo Grammy. This year, 15 women were nominated for four top Grammy awards.

Though some say this year’s award show was noticeably worse than previous shows, those in charge are working to improve their show for the participating artists and those watching around the world.