Lata Mangeshkar’s fans are angry that the late singer was not honored in the 64th Annual Grammy Awards’ ‘In Memoriam’ section. The iconic Indian playback singer’s exclusion from the 2022 Grammy Awards ceremony, held early Monday morning in Las Vegas, comes a week after Mangeshkar was also kept out of the Academy Awards’ homage portion.
Lata Mangeshkar died on January 6
On January 6, Mangeshkar died of numerous organ failures. She was 92 years old when she died. The Recording Academy, which hosts Hollywood’s biggest musical awards night, was chastised on Twitter by fans for omitting Mangeshkar’s name. A fan slammed the Grammys for honoring exclusively American music, calling them “futile and insignificant.”
“It felt fruitless and small when they were paying respect to musicians who had passed away this year and there was no mention of Lata Mangeshkar, India’s most loved vocalist. These shows don’t care about ‘global’ music; they only care about American music.” Another person wrote: “So, in their separate Memoriam portions, both the Oscars and the Grammys forgot to commemorate the late great Lata Mangeshkar? That’s a pity. #Oscars #GrammyAwards”
On January 15, Lahiri died of obstructive sleep apnea, just days after Mangeshkar. “The greatest singer in Indian history, #LataMangeshkar or #bappilahiri, was not honored at the #GRAMMYs.”
The Grammys’ ‘In Memoriam portion paid tribute to a number of people, including Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins, Hollywood actors Sidney Poitier and Betty White, and singer-actors Meat Loaf and Vicente Fernandez, and jazz composer Chick Corea, among others.
According to ETOnline, the show started with a list of hundreds of names to maybe include, but due to the duration of the segment, they had to narrow down the final selection. The GRAMMYs website has a far more thorough list, which does not include Mangeshkar or Lahiri. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which oversees the Academy Awards, also left Dilip Kumar off their ‘In Memoriam’ list last week.
The British Academy of Film and Television Awards (BAFTA) featured Mangeshkar in the ‘In Memoriam’ segment in its 2022 edition, describing him as “an Indian playback singer who recorded an estimated 25,000 songs for more than 1,000 Hindi films over a 70-year career.”