As award season dawns upon us, many people prepare to spend three hours sitting in front of their television to watch their favorite celebrity either win or get snubbed an award. Nearly 20 million people around the world tuned into the 61st Annual Grammy Awards on February 10 of this year.

Alicia Keyes hosted this year’s award show and definitely made it her own show. She made sure to use her spot to speak about what she wanted. Keyes opened up the show with a girl power and music statement along side Lady Gaga, Jada Pinkett Smith, Michelle Obama, and Jennifer Lopez.

Throughout the show there were many highlight performances and wins. Kacey Musgraves won four awards, Lady Gaga won three, and Childish Gambino won four, just to name a few star winners. Some of the night’s top performances were Janelle Monáe’s Make Me Feel mash-up, the Dolly Parton tribute, Cardi B, and the Aretha Franklin tribute.

Though many are more than happy to devote their time to this, others have been protesting against the Grammys for years. Celebrities like Beyoncé, Ariana Grande, Childish Gambino, and Rihanna skipped out on the Grammys this year. The Grammys has a bad reputation when it comes to being fair towards people of color, as well as women. One of the problems was their history with rap. As of now the only rap act to ever win the title of album of the year at is OutKast in 2004. Another big problem within the award show business is that women do not get equivalent airtime or awards compared to their male acts, announcers, and winners.

This year the Grammys seemed to try a little more at being more inclusive and broad. The academy looked to do good by inviting Alicia Keys to host the show as well as gave more awards to women acts compared to previous years that were dominated by men. As for other aspects, the academy made sure to broaden their nominations from five apps to seven in multiple categories.

The Grammy Awards have come a long way from their history of discrimination as shown in this year’s show. With more representation shown than ever before, the 61st Annual Grammy Awards was history in the making.