The 64th Annual Grammy Awards went down on Sunday (April 3) at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, where Silk Sonic’s Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak, J Balvin, BTS, Lady Gaga, Nas, Billie Eilish and more had a chance to perform some of their biggest hits.
The evening carried a somewhat somber undertone triggered by a video address from Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemning Russia’s attack on his country and John Legend’s melancholic rendition of “Free,” which included a Ukrainian poet and singer.
The sadness continued to reverberate off the four walls of the MGM when the “In Memoriam” portion of the program started with a tribute to late Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins. The band was supposed to perform that evening, but Hawkins was found deal in a Colombian hotel room on March 25.
As names such as Young Dolph, Biz Markie and Jesse D from the Force MDs scrolled across the screen, some people took issue with the late Virgil Abloh being labeled as a “Hip Hop Fashion Designer.”
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True, Abloh had a close relationship with the Hip Hop world considering he worked closely with Kanye West, but he also founded his own fashion label Off-White and served as artistic director of Louis Vuitton’s menswear. He also worked with giant companies such as Nike and IKEA.
Abloh earned a Master of Architecture degree at the Illinois Institute of Technology before breaking into fashion, too. He was once nominated for a Grammy Award in the Best Recording Package category for his work on JAY-Z and Kanye’s 2011 collaborative album Watch the Throne.
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Shortly after the segment aired, Twitter lit up with comments shaming the Recording Academy for using the title. As one person wrote, “Calling Virgil Abloh a ‘Hip-Hop Fashion Designer’ is insanely disrespectful and blindly ignorant…do better.”
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Abloh passed away last November following a private battle with a rare form of cancer, leaving a wife and two children behind. He was just 41 years old. Check out some of the reactions below.
