During the 2025 VMAs, fans celebrated seeing Kendrick Lamar’s name in the running for 10 different awards. The rapper was in the running for some of the most coveted categories of the show, including Artist of the Year, Best Album, and the prestigious Video of the Year.
But fast-forward to 2026, the artist’s name appears only once in this year’s list of VMA nominees, tucked under the Best Collaboration category. The dramatic drop hasn’t gone unnoticed by fans who jumped online to call out the VMAS for overlooking monumental Black artists shaping playlists and culture in the music industry as a whole.
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Digging deeper into this year’s list of nominees, it feels that Black talent is being shut out from the opportunity to claim some of the biggest and buzziest awards of the night, with the VMAs continuing a pattern of Black talent being stuck in “urban” categories that artists like Tyler, the Creator have called out for ages.
Take a look at the roster of artists competing for this year’s Video of the Year award. Pop acts like Sabrina Carpenter, Taylor Swift and Madonna dominate. They are also nominated for the prized Artist of the Year award, while the only R&B artist in these categories is Bruno Mars, something fans also noted in their reactions.
Weirdest @vmas nominations of all time
— BeYAYA (DONK) (@BeYAYA444) August 18, 2026
Where are the other R&B and hip-hop artists like Megan Thee Stallion? They’ve largely been confined to genre-specific categories despite having recent hits, like Megan’s “LOVER GIRL,” that would make them serious contenders in the night’s top awards.
There are some outliers, including Teyana Taylor and Lucky Daye being nominated for the genre-neutral Best Collaboration category for their R&B track “Hard Part,” but these aren’t…
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Read Full Article by Elizabeth Paige Richardson at www.ebony.com
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