On Sunday, Jan. 15 Madonna received a Golden Globe award for the Best Original Song of the year. A number of viewers and audience members, including Elton John’s husband David Furnish, asked the same thing. Soon after Madonna accepted her award, Furnish vented via Twitter, “Madonna. Best song???? F**** off!!!” and “Madonna winning Best Original Song truly shows how these awards have nothing to do with merit. Her acceptance speech was embarrassing in its narcissism. And her criticism of [Lady] GaGa shows how desperate she really is.”
Madonna, the original Queen of Pop, implied that Lady GaGa ripped off her song “Express Yourself” for “Born This Way,” which she called “reductive” in an interview on “20/20” with Barbara Walters.
But instead of focusing on Madonna’s jabs at other artists, what about the other nominees? What about Mary J Blige?
As the recipient of nine Grammy Awards, four American Music Awards, and eight multi-platinum albums the queen of R&B and soul was noticeably absent from the conversation. The only artist with Grammy Award wins in Pop, Rap, Gospel, and R&B, stayed above the fray and out of the ish. or perhaps Madonna didn’t dare take on Mary J, who we understand is not afraid of scrapping with the best of them.
An icon in the musical community on various levels, Mary has recently topped the R&B Billboard charts with her 2011 release of My Life Part 2: The Journey Continues. The album which featured some of the hottest hip-hop, pop, and R&B artists of our time including Drake, Beyonce, Rick Ross, Diddy, and Nas, has done just as well as her younger counterparts who also released albums in the same year.
When will the industry as a whole give African Americans the recognition they deserve for the impact our work has had on the world?
I guess we can wait until Black History Month.
Take a look at our Golden Globe Best Original Song Nominees Slideshow.
