Lalah Hathaway, daughter of the late, great Donny Hathaway, is breaking records that we’re sure her mother is proud of and that her beloved Pops would be beaming with pride because of. We just wish that more of the general population were able to experience this record breaking moment with her.
This year (2017), she became the first R&B artist ever to win the most consecutive Grammy Awards three years straight. This year she one two- for Best Traditional R&B Performance for her cover of Anita Baker’s “Angel” on her Lalah Hathaway: Live album (released in 2015) and for Best R&B Album for that same album.
In the years prior, Lalah won Best Traditional R&B Performance for “Jesus Children” with Robert Glasper Experiment & Malcolm-Jamal Warner in 2015 and Best R&B Performance for “Something” with Snarky Puppy in 2014.
The reason most people don’t know that Lalah won, nor broke history is because of two reasons:
1. Mainstream R&B music is currently on life support and has been so for several years now. We highlight the word ‘mainstream’ because there are many exceptional R&B artists out there -new and old- but you won’t be hearing them in mainstream media since they aren’t getting the push from corporate media giants.
2. The Recording Academy (Grammy Awards) doesn’t view R&B as a viable enough genre to have most of it’s R&B categories make it onto the ‘big stage’ come live TV broadcast time. Therefore, the R&B categories that Lalah won were not televised on the Grammy Awards live broadcast. However, for the small amount of people who knew about it- they were able to watch a live stream of the Grammy Awards Premiere Ceremony on Grammys.com. That was the pre-Grammy Awards ceremony where Lalah and others accepted their awards. But again, it would have been great if more of the general population actually knew that the live stream existed though.
Lalah is one of my favorite R&B singers. She has a way of doing some sort of vocal acrobatics with her voice and her runs are unmatched. It’s beautiful to see her getting accolades for her accomplishments. HOWEVER, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: a trophy shouldn’t define an artist, their body of work should. Lalah’s body of work has defined her as an artist and even though her fans may not have known about the un-televised trophies she just won, that does not determine how much they dig her musical art, long before the trophies were sitting on her mantlepiece. Keep doing your thang Ms. Hathaway!
