This year’s awards season was to operate – with all the drama that accompanies it – under the same grim reality that every other fundamentally light-hearted public event in recent months has had to work under: Russia’s ongoing and bloody invasion of Ukraine. Previous shows, like last week’s Oscars, approached the events in Ukraine with a relatively light touch, highlighting, say, Ukrainian actress Mila Kunis to present a quiet rendition of Reba McEntire before flashing a text about the invasion of Ukraine. screen. (And then: The cryptographic ads!) The Grammys did not follow this trick tonight, to put it mildly. Instead, we received a videotaped message directly from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, which was allegedly filmed at a shelter in Kyiv, reminding us that the country’s musicians are currently wearing “no tuxedo” armor. In his message, Zelensky – who has become a world-renowned figure in the defense of his country on the front lines in the face of the Russian invasion – called on the West to condemn Russia, naming war-torn Ukrainian cities and reminding viewers that “Our children are designing falling rockets and not falling stars”. It was extremely moving, followed by a performance by John Legend, who offered an even gloomier than usual rendition of his song “Free”, accompanied by Ukrainian musicians Siuzanna Iglidan and Mika Newton and poet Lyuba Yakimchuk. . (The accompanying chyrons included such emotional events as the information that Yakimchuk had just left the country a few days ago and that the Newton family was still fighting in the country.) It was a difficult time to come to terms with the rest of tonight’s Grammys, which were cool even by the standards of the awards. It’s hard not to feel that these three minutes made everything before and after completely trivial. Which is, perhaps, the consequence of putting something that really matters in front of your cameras for a minute.
