Why is Silk Sonic not submitting their album for Grammy consideration?

The music world is ablaze with reactions and speculation around those submitting their work for consideration at the 2023 Grammy Awards, but there have been some notable absences that many music lovers are considering to be a little bit puzzling. 

The biggest one? Silk Sonic, the duo consisting of Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak, not submitting their debut album, An Evening with Silk Sonic.

Two other would-be shoo-ins who are also lacking nominations are Drake and The Weeknd, both of whom have snubbed the Grammy Awards in recent years after being burned by the music industry body a few too many times. 

As it turns out, all of the above artists may well have had nominations to their names, but all three acts have withdrawn from consideration for one reason or another.

Why did Silk Sonic bow out of the 2023 Grammys?

A definitive reason was not given by Silk Sonic or any of its representatives, but Bruno Mars did issue the following statement to Rolling Stone.

“We truly put our all on this record, but Silk Sonic would like to gracefully, humbly and most importantly, sexually, bow out of submitting our album this year. We hope we can celebrate with everyone on a great year of music and partake in the party. Thank you for letting Silk Sonic thrive.”

The statement doesn’t appear to bear any sort of ill will towards the Grammys, while both Drake and The Weeknd have both publicly expressed disdain towards the awards after some snubbings. 

We do know the pop duo already ran away with four Grammys for the ‘An Evening With Silk Sonic’ album’s lead single, “Leave the Door Open”, at the 2022 awards.

Bruno Mars commented on this fact, which provides a little more cagey context as to why Silk Sonic withdrew. 

“We’d be crazy to ask for anything more. Andy and I, and everyone that worked on this project, won the moment the world responded to ‘Leave The Door Open.’ Everything else was just icing on the cake,”

So we can only speculate when it comes to unpacking any deeper reasoning, but at face value, Silk Sonic believe they have already received all of the recognition they need for their work on the album.

It could be Mars’ way of avoiding any further backlash as a result of the perceived bias of the Grammys towards him, particularly as Silk Sonic is up against some stiff competition with some passionate fan bases this year – including the likes of Kendrick Lamar, Adele, and Beyoncé for their musical works in the past year.