Could comic win his fifth award?

Dave Chappelle has been nominated for a Grammy award for a speech defending his provocative material.

What’s In A Name? was a talk he gave to students in Washington DC addressing accusations his work was transphobic and homophobic and warning of the dangers of cancel culture.

In the speech, he said: ‘The more you say I can’t say something, the more urgent it is for me to say it. It has nothing to do with what you are saying I can’t say. It has everything to do with my right, my freedom of artistic expression, that is valuable to me, that is not separate to me. It’s worth protecting for me and for everybody else who endeavours in our noble, noble profession.’

Some students protested his speech, but those in the audience of the show – which was also released as a Netflix special –  gave him an appreciative response.

Chappelle won the Grammy for best comedy album last year for The Closer, which had been slammed by campaigners. LGBT group GLAAD said: ‘Chappelle’s brand has become synonymous with ridiculing trans people.’

In the showm he joked about beating up a lesbian in a club after misgendering her, concluding: ‘I whooped the toxic masculinity out of that bitch.’  Other lines focussed on transwomen’s genitals and he declared himself: ‘Team Terf’ alongside JK Rowling.

Chappelle  – who also won the Grammy for three consecutive years from 2018 – is not the only comedian on the 2023 best comedy album shortlist to address cancel culture.

Chris Rock’s Selective Outrage – in which he complains about arbitrary ‘woke’ rules about where the line should be drawn – has also been nominated.

But another nominee, Wanda Sykes, has the opposite opinion. In an interview earlier this year, she said: ‘To me, the whole complaint about cancel culture is a lot of men — especially straight men — who are just pissed that they can’t say things anymore, y’know? And it’s not like you can't say these things. You can say them, but now there’s just consequences.’

She was nominated for her special I’m An Entertainer, while the shortlist, released tonight, wass rounded out by Sarah Silverman’s Someone You Love; and Trevor Noah’s  I Wish You Would.

Meanwhile, ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic is up for  best compilation soundtrack for visual media for his work on the spoof biopic Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, starring Daniel Radcliffe as the accordion-wielding comedian.

The 66th Grammy awards will take place on  February 4,  with a host yet to be announced.

Published: 10 Nov 2023