Three albums in one calendar year, and not a single song put forward for a trophy. According to Billboard, Drake did not submit any of his 2026 projects, or any tracks from them, for consideration at the 2027 GRAMMYs.
That means one of the most commercially dominant rappers of the streaming era is out of the race before voting even begins. No entries means no nominations, no matter how the records performed.
For anyone who has followed Drake’s relationship with the Recording Academy, this doesn’t come out of nowhere. The tension has been building for the better part of a decade.
Back in 2017, after “Hotline Bling” won in two rap categories, Drake told DJ Semtex he felt the song had been filed under rap because that was the only box the Academy knew to put him in. He said he didn’t even consider it a rap song, and the frustration was hard to miss.
Two years later he took the stage to accept Best Rap Song for “God’s Plan” and used the moment to tell artists they didn’t need the gramophone if fans were singing their lyrics back to them.
The broadcast cut to a commercial mid-speech, which only fed the idea that he and the institution weren’t on the same page.
Then in late 2021 he withdrew his two nominations for Certified Lover Boy and “Way 2 Sexy.” The Academy honored the request, and those categories went ahead without him.
There’s also a more recent backdrop that’s tough to ignore. Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us,” the centerpiece of their 2024 feud, swept five GRAMMYs at the 2025 ceremony, including Record of the Year and Song of the Year.
By that point Drake had already filed a defamation lawsuit against Universal Music Group over the track. Watching the Academy hand that song its biggest honors probably didn’t warm him up to the institution.
So fans are split on how to read this move. One camp sees a pointed message aimed squarely at the Recording Academy, a refusal to lend legitimacy to a system he’s criticized out loud for years.
The other reading is simpler. Drake has long said that sales, streams and fan devotion are the real scoreboard, and sitting this one out might just be him finally acting like he means it.
There’s a practical side too. Releasing three albums in a single year is a volume play built for charts and playlists, not for awards campaigns that reward a single tightly focused body of work.
Neither Drake nor his team has publicly addressed the Billboard report so far. With the 2027 nominations still to come, his absence from the ballot is going to be a talking point long before anyone opens an envelope.
