While many were left swept up in the idea of the Grammys slowly but surely coming around to the twenty-first century with its “forward-thinking” (a.k.a. black) selection of winners (including Childish Gambino and Cardi B), the truth at the heart of the matter is that nothing else was as moving as the interpretive piano performance by Chloe Flower at the beginning of Cardi’s rendition of “Money.” No, not even the Dolly Parton tribute (which Katy Perry fucked up with her presence anyway, along with whoever Kacey Musgraves is).
Known for bringing a classical spin to modern pop songs (there is a video of her playing “thank u, next” if you want an idea), Flower’s big dick energy was ideal to commence a song that touts a message embodying such. Forcefully yet somehow also gracefully, the not so delicate Flower pressed her hands against the keys with the full weight of her body in a way that pussy boy Ernest Hemingway likely never could with his own brittle hands against the typewriter.
In a couture gown looking like something out of a Tim Burton movie (somehow Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street or Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children come to mind), Flower oozed a countenance that said simply: fuck with me, you know I got it. Which is precisely why she lured the old guard into a false sense of security with her dainty opening notes, combining the so-called sacredness of classical music with the purported profaneness of rap. And as the camera cut to Cardi in her 1920s-inspired gamine aesthetic, all of us were left wondering if the pianist would ever return to the frame. To have captivated a nation in such a small amount of time is, indeed, what it means to exude star quality (just ask the Fiji water girl). What’s more, to do it with a piano–an instrument that hasn’t been treated with the true rock ‘n’ roll edge it deserves since the early days of Elton John and most of Liberace’s career–is a strong point in the argument for Truffaut’s old adage and movie: Don’t shoot the piano player. Because she’ll likely shoot you first with one piercing and arresting gaze. The kind that can kill.
