The many tastes of Vampire Weekend's Ezra Koenig range from Peter Gabriel to Ranma 1/2, so it's a little surprising he's not asked to judge and curate things more often. In a recent, "Grammy Awards edition" of his jazz piano-scored Beats 1 show Time Crisis, Koenig reveals that this is the first year he's registered to vote on the Grammys and he seems to have had a mission to accomplish: to make rap win everything.Koenig discloses that he voted for Kendrick Lamar's DAMN. to win Album of the Year while also wondering if divulging his ballot is against the rules ("Pitchfork story: Ezra Koenig Disqualified!" his co-host Jake Longstreth jokes). His reasoning is that "[the Grammys] don't give Album of the Year a lot to hip-hop, which is crazy. They've got a real bad track record." He also states that he voted for Lil Uzi Vert's "XO Tour Llif3" to be nominated "a lot," calling it one of the biggest songs of the year (again, it should have at least got one nomination instead of zero) and he shouts out Metro Boomin as being snubbed for Producer of the Year. He makes good arguments in all regards, and this rap fandom isn't unfounded for Koenig, who's done Danny Brown-featuring remixes of Vampire Weekend ballads and featured Lil Jon in both his lyrics and a music video.Koenig is also frank about the politics of Grammys voting and is in general pretty funny throughout, ("I'm not turning in the anti-white-male line. You know I love Van Morrison.") so you should take a listen to the whole episode here.
Advertisement