While last night’s Grammy Awards were certainly less chaotic than the Academy Awards the weekend before, they didn’t go down without incident. As Complex reports, the Recording Academy is being hit with significant backlash online for its troublesome tribute to the late Virgil Abloh.
During the annual “In Memoriam” segment, the father of two was just one of the many famous faces remembered by audiences all over the world, although the description under his name failed to accurately describe all that Abloh encompassed in his all-too-short life.
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“Hip Hop Fashion Designer” was what the Grammys chose to remember the late 41-year-old as, despite the fact that he founded his own fashion label, the wildly successful Off-White, and worked as artistic director of Louis Vuitton’s menswear sector for several years prior to his death.
Abloh also worked with mainstream brands like IKEA and Nike throughout his career after receiving a Master of Architecture degree from Illinois’ Institute of Technology – and that was before he even entered the world of fashion.
“Very disrespectful for the Grammys to call Virgil Abloh a ‘Hip Hop Fashion Designer’… The micro-aggressive racism we see in fashion and entertainment today still baffles me,” one frustrated user shared on Twitter. “It’s like a racially-charged sneak diss or something,” another person wrote, sharing a clip of Ye speaking on a similar matter during his Drink Champs interview.
See more reactions to this year’s Recording Academy “In Memoriam” segment below, and let us know what your thoughts are in the comment section.
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