Drake’s Grammy stance is no longer just a pointed lyric or a familiar complaint about awards politics. The rapper has not submitted any songs or albums for Grammy consideration this year, removing ICEMAN, HABIBTI and MAID OF HONOUR from the field before nominations can become part of the conversation.
That decision matters because ICEMAN had arrived with material that could have invited major-category speculation, including “Shabang” and “Janice STFU.” Some listeners had viewed the album as a possible contender in the rap album race. Without a submission, though, that debate is strictly hypothetical: a record cannot earn a Grammy nomination if it is not entered for consideration.
It is also a particularly direct way for Drake to make his broader point. His recent output has been substantial, with three albums named in this year’s release run. HABIBTI also received a FOMO Deluxe edition on Friday, with the added release potentially helping its streaming performance after five months on services. In choosing not to participate in the Grammy process, Drake is effectively separating commercial momentum and fan attention from institutional recognition.
“MAKE THEM KNOW” now reads as a mission statement
The decision was foreshadowed in “MAKE THEM KNOW,” where Drake says he will not submit the album because he does not expect it to be considered. The lyric also plays with the idea that withholding it could be the path to winning, an intentionally contradictory line that frames the awards process as something he believes is shaped by positioning as much as the music itself.
“This album, I’m never submittin’ it / ’Cause I know that they’ll never consider it.”
Those bars make the reported non-submission feel less like a last-minute omission and more like a planned artistic and public-relations choice. Drake has been critical of the Grammys in the past, and the new move turns that criticism into a concrete refusal to compete. Rather than wait for a nomination result to validate or frustrate him, he has chosen not to offer the Recording Academy an entry at all.
That distinction is important. A boycott, in this context, does not mean the music disappears from public discussion. It means the artist declines to put the work through a particular awards system. Fans can still stream the albums, discuss standout tracks and measure their reach in the ways available to them. What is absent is the prospect of Grammy nominations and wins for this release cycle.
What a non-submission changes—and what it does not
A Grammy submission is the formal step that places eligible work into the awards process for consideration. It is not itself a nomination, and a submission does not guarantee that voters will embrace a project. But it is the threshold step. By not submitting the albums or songs, Drake has closed off the possibility of seeing them nominated at next year’s ceremony.
For ICEMAN, that means there will be no official Grammy campaign arc to follow. There will be no need to parse whether a song landed in a rap category or crossed into a broader field, and no late-season narrative built around a potential rap album nomination. The album may remain culturally prominent, but it will not become a Grammy contender through this cycle.
The move also changes the meaning of any comparisons made between awards success and audience success. Drake’s apparent position is that he does not need Grammy recognition to establish the importance of his work. That argument becomes more forceful when the artist is releasing frequently and still generating major tracks, as the discussion around “Shabang” and “Janice STFU” suggests.
At the same time, declining submission means Drake is voluntarily giving up a chance at the visibility that comes with nomination morning and the ceremony itself. That is not a minor trade-off for an artist of his stature. Grammy attention can dominate a news cycle, put older tracks back into rotation and give fans an additional event around which to rally. Drake’s decision suggests that avoiding a system he distrusts carries more value to him than pursuing those benefits.
The Kendrick Lamar backdrop is impossible to ignore
Any current discussion of Drake and the Grammys also sits beside the reception for Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us.” The diss track won both Song of the Year and Record of the Year in 2025, and it was played during the ceremony while attendees reacted in the room. That made the Grammys part of the broader public story around the Drake-Kendrick conflict, not simply an unrelated awards night.
It would be speculation to present that moment as the sole reason for Drake’s decision. The available evidence instead points to a longer-running distrust, and “MAKE THEM KNOW” expressly articulates his intention not to submit. Still, the scale of “Not Like Us” at the 2025 ceremony helps explain why an awards process Drake already viewed skeptically can now feel even more charged.
There is a difference between saying the Lamar wins caused the non-submission and saying they form part of the atmosphere around it. Only the latter is supported here. Drake’s lyric supplies the clearest explanation in his own work: he does not expect fair consideration and rejects the perceived positioning behind the awards race.
A deliberate absence from next year’s ceremony
The practical takeaway is simple. Do not expect ICEMAN, “Shabang,” “Janice STFU,” HABIBTI or MAID OF HONOUR to appear in next year’s Grammy nominations through Drake’s own submissions. And because the decision is a refusal to participate rather than a campaign for recognition, an appearance at the ceremony would run against the message he has put forward.
For fans, the story is less about a trophy that Drake might have won than about how he wants this run of releases to be evaluated. His position favors a direct relationship between the music and its audience over a conventional awards-season chase. The success or staying power of these records will therefore be argued through their songs, streaming life and cultural traction—not a Grammy ballot.
That posture may appeal to listeners who see award shows as an unreliable yardstick, while others will regard it as a missed opportunity for work they believe deserves a place in the race. Either way, the decision is unusually clear. Drake has taken the question of whether the Grammys will recognize these albums out of the Grammys’ hands.
For more music-adjacent pop-culture coverage, see the report on Chris Brown’s reported income becoming central to a custody dispute.
