I agree with all of this. I just have to say as someone who organized it for two years, we barely could muster 100 votes for the entire hip-hop list of nominees. You guys are talking about “inclusion” and “representation” when a very small few were even interacting with the CPMA voting process at all. Someone like Lauren Hall who has won for several years maybe gets a few dozen votes. It’s not just all on the City Paper. It’s an independent paper that struggles just like Extra Chill does. We don’t have all these insane budgets to put the word out there — it’s all grassroots social media. Oftentimes the artists who were nominated didn’t participate in getting the word out. It takes a village. This is a tiny ass little competition that exists to celebrate the music talents. We used to have a bit more money and would hire a local artist to design the awards. It was all about shining a light on the scene. Just please keep that in mind. CPMAs are not what they used to be, but a large part of that is how few of us out there care enough to support the CMPAs by simply voting or buying a ticket to watch the awards show.
