For a speech criticising those who call him out on trans jokes

Dave Chappelle won this year’s best comedy album Grammy for a show clapping back at cancel culture.

It is the fifth time in seven year the stand-up has won the the category, despite heavy criticism that his later specials have been punching down at trans people.

Last night’s victory – over fellow nominees Wanda Sykes, Sarah Silverman, Chris Rock and Trevor Noah – was for What’s In A Name?, a show he filmed at his old college. 

Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Washington had been planning to name a new theatre in his honour, but had a rethink following the backlash for trans jokes in his 2021 special The Closer.

In the Grammy-winning speech, which addressed those issues, he said ‘all the kids were screaming and yelling’ about gender – ‘but they didn’t say anything about art’.

Claiming protesters had taken all the ‘artistic nuance’ from his words, Chappelle said the students were overly critical of his ’freedom of artistic expression’.

And he said: ‘The more you say I can’t say something, the more urgent it is for me to say it.’

Chappelle was not at the ceremony in Los Angeles to collect his award.

He has won every Grammy for best comedy album since 2019, except for 2021 – when it went to Tiffany Haddish – and 2022 when judges made an even more controversial decision, handing the award to Louis CK.

Published: 5 Feb 2024