The Grammy Award for Album of the Year has a revered position in pop culture. The project earning the title is almost always met with intense debate and scrutiny, largely due to the expectation that, beyond impressive sales and chart positioning, it is a body of work successfully capturing a cultural moment for generations to come, becoming something people will look back on to gauge where our collective taste and artistic leanings once stood.
So that is why, as immigration officers violently patrol streets nationwide—disproportionately targeting Latino communities and other people of color while hunting the very immigrants who helped build this country—the win for Bad Bunny’s Spanish-language album DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS was immediately understood as a fitting reflection of our current reality. Throughout the album, the Puerto Rican artist wrestles with the gentrification of his homeland and voices concern over the potentially negative consequences of Puerto Rican statehood. In doing so, he echoes what many artists made clear from the Grammy stage that night, particularly those who used their elevated platform to denounce ICE: Art has always been inherently political.
There is a longstanding argument, often deployed by the far-right, that celebrities do not have a place speaking on politics (or “shut up and dribble,” as one FOX News reporter spitefully advised LeBron James after he criticized Donald Trump in 2018). Personally, I think this was rendered void the moment a reality TV star leveraged his celebrity into the highest office in the country. But even beyond that, the argument overlooks the truth that everything is political. From the tariffs placed on the food we eat to the labor conditions under which our clothes are made, politics shapes our lives.
And art, music, comedy, and fashion are no different. Before the ceremony, stars like Justin and Hailey Bieber, Joni Mitchell, and Kehlani were spotted wearing “ICE OUT” pins on the Grammys red carpet, all but ensuring every style roundup detailing their looks had to mention their stance. Host Trevor Noah, a South African immigrant, opened the show by using his monologue as a political tool by taking jabs at Donald Trump’s obsession with Greenland and his links with the disgraced Jeffrey Epstein (which Trump is now threatening to sue him over, but I digress). Later on, artists like Olivia Dean, Billie Eilish, and the man of the hour, Bad Bunny himself, used their time onstage to honor cultural contributions from immigrants and to recognize the threat ICE poses to our country’s safety. “ICE Out,” Bad Bunny said as he accepted the award for Best Música Urbana Album. “We’re not savage, we’re not animals, we’re not aliens. We are humans, and we are Americans.”
Even when the projects being celebrated weren’t overt political statements, many of the artists behind them understood that their mere existence in our cultural landscape makes them part of our political ecosystem, too. From that stage, they held the attention of millions and took the opportunity to remind viewers (whether they agreed or not) that immigrants are an essential part of this country’s fabric and are responsible for creating projects audiences love and turn to as an escape from reality. It all showed exactly how politics and the celebration of art are intertwined.
Despite this, there is still an ongoing digital debate about whether celebrities can truly opt out of political conversations by treating art and politics as mutually exclusive worlds. It’s clear why select public figures hesitate to share their personal thoughts in this realm. (Even on Sunday night while celebrating his Grammy win, Jelly Roll admitted he refrained from sharing his take on “what’s going on in our country right now” while onstage because he considers himself a “a dumb redneck…disconnected from what’s happening.”) There’s the relatable worry that they might not have the capacity to properly articulate their stance on complex issues and the less relatable worry that their opinions could isolate half of their potential consumer base.
But regardless of anyone’s personal comfort level with speaking up in public settings, we are all “political people,” no matter how many protests we attend or infographics we share on Instagram, because we all live, love, create, and survive within systems shaped by the government’s decisions. Not everyone is forced to confront the impact of those decisions, mostly because political harm disproportionately subjugates low-income people, women, and communities of color. But every artist works within this context (as Kamala Harris famously said, “No one fell out of a coconut tree”), whether they acknowledge it or not.
Sometimes a star’s awareness of this truth plays out in your face, like it did in Bad Bunny’s Album of the Year–winning project or with last year’s Album of the Year winner, Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter, which honored the generational persistence of Black Americans in the face of relentless political persecution. But even ostensibly apolitical works (like a pop anthem from Olivia Rodrigo—who wore an “ICE Out” pin during Grammys weekend—or an escapist rom-com) are shaped by the gender norms and power dynamics fostered under our political conditions.
The artists who spoke out at the Grammys, acknowledging political tensions head-on, were not disrupting a sacred apolitical space. They were merely up front about the cultural moment their work already occupies. By not pretending to treat music and politics as church and state, they joined a long legacy of stars who have used their platforms for this kind of public good and showed how the art they create can be a vehicle for deepening political awareness. The Grammys didn’t “become political” this year. They simply stopped pretending they weren’t.
