Questlove Reveals That Some Artists Avoided Grammy’s Hip-Hop 50 Tribute Because They Didn’t Want To Be Called ‘Old School’

The Hip Hop 50 Tribute at the Grammy’s was one of the most talked about moments of the night, along with the multiple Beyoncé and Kendrick Lamar snubs. Questlove has been receiving praise for curating the tribute and has shared some of the struggles in trying to get artists to perform.

The Roots drummer said on Twitter that the three main reasons why some artists declined to perform were because they were either already booked, declined the offer, or a third option that Quest declined to get into.

“general ?s answered about last night: (some are asking if we are playing erasure games so uh….yeah I don’t play that so—in answering the questions of “why wasn’t dada there?) 1. already booked 2. declined our offer straight up 3. or a third option im not gonna get into.”

In the thread, Questlove shared his thought process behind choosing the rappers that performed, even throwing out the idea of having an all-women rappers performance, which was quickly shot down.

People began to ask Quest different questions about the tribute, and the process of finding rappers to do a tribute. One fan asked if he had once said that certain rappers don’t do tributes because it might age them, to which Quest said that current rappers started to loathe sentimental history and in the process of trying to find artists who wanted to do tributes, half of the “no’s” he got were from artists saying that they’re not old school.

“this is KEY. started 20 years back w Hip Hop Honors. Hip Hoppers (current at least) LOATHE sentimental history or talk of Legacy or anything so half the “NO” was from the “we aint old school”—-once 40 THEN mofos think about making a lasting impression.”