Opinion The Grammys speak up, make a political point

At the 68th Grammy Awards on Monday, Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny stood before the American music industry in the Crypto.com arena in Los Angeles and declared “ICE Out”, echoing the demand for the removal of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers from US towns and cities. He had just won Album of the Year for DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS (I Should Have Taken More Photos) — 17 songs in Spanish about the Caribbean island and its people’s place in the world. Throwing out a sharp challenge to the Donald Trump administration’s vocabulary for immigrants, he said: “…we’re not animals, we’re not aliens. We are humans and we are Americans,”. His album highlights cultural erasure, displacement and how residents of the island — a US territory — are still without the right to vote and Congressional representation.

At a time when debates over immigration, citizenship and belonging are intensifying, the Grammys was more than an awards show. Politics took centre stage as the music world’s biggest stars protested Trump’s immigration crackdown. Billie Eilish, who won Record and Song of the Year, said, “No one is illegal on stolen land.” First-time Grammy winner Olivia Dean, born and raised in north London by a Jamaican-Guyanese mother and an English father, choked as she said, “I’m up here as a granddaughter of an immigrant.” Acceptance speeches came loaded with immigrants’ stories. An awards night had turned into a public reckoning.

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During the year’s most significant night for music, artistes were engaging with the politics of the times. They were a reminder that art does not exist in silos and that in difficult times taking the stage can come with the responsibility of taking a stand.