Music’s elite are congregating in Los Angeles for Sunday’s Grammy Awards, and Beyonce’s title is on the tip of everybody’s tongue: will Recording Academy voters lastly give the megastar her due?
She is essentially the most embellished Grammy artist in historical past, however Beyonce has infamously by no means received the coveted prize for Album of the 12 months — regardless of 4 earlier nominations for her studio albums — and the 67th version of the awards gala would possibly lastly put that paradox to mattress.
This time round, her genre-spanning “Cowboy Carter” — she is going to go on tour in help of the album this 12 months, she introduced simply earlier than the gala — is in competition.
However she is going to face stiff competitors from work by perennial winners like Billie Eilish and Taylor Swift, together with a buzzy class of pop hitmakers together with Chappell Roan, Sabrina Carpenter and Charli XCX.
Regardless of the high-wattage star energy, Grammy week — which is normally loaded up with {industry} events and performances — has taken on a extra somber tone than typical, because the leisure capital reels within the aftermath of lethal wildfires that leveled total neighborhoods simply weeks in the past.
Organizers determined the glitzy awards present ought to go on, with a newfound mission to lift support funds and pay homage to impacted {industry} members together with first responders.
On Friday, the annual MusiCares gala — which this 12 months honored psychedelic jam band the Grateful Useless — raised greater than $5 million in a single night, bringing the establishment’s whole sum raised because the fires broke out to greater than $9 million.
The broader mission of MusiCares, the charitable arm of the Recording Academy, contains providing a parachute for artists and different employees within the precarious US music {industry} for every part from catastrophe aid to psychological well being help.
The sudden want for fireplace support positioned a highlight on that mission, and others within the {industry} have taken their result in give again.
Music powerbroker Irving Azoff, together with live performance promoters Stay Nation and AEG Presents, organized a large profit live performance on Thursday that includes main stars like Woman Gaga, Eilish, Dr. Dre and even Joni Mitchell.
Saturday’s annual Clive Davis gala — one of the coveted tickets within the enterprise — additionally targeted on wildfire aid.
“We should acknowledge… the ache, the loss and the devastation,” stated Davis, the legendary music govt who has hosted the ultra-exclusive bash for 50 years.
Performers included everybody from the long-lasting Joni Mitchell to crooner Michael Buble to nominees Shaboozey and Benson Boone.
– Beyonce’s time? –
That Beyonce has produced industry-shifting, culture-shaking work for years however been repeatedly and conspicuously shut out of the highest Grammy prizes for finest album and finest file is considered one of many clearest illustrations of the voting physique’s tendency to sideline the work of Black artists within the main fields.
Pop juggernaut Swift has received the Album of the 12 months trophy a file 4 instances — greater than the entire Black girls who’ve received it mixed.
The final to take action was Lauryn Hill, in 1999. Earlier than her, Whitney Houston received in 1994, and Natalie Cole in 1992.
This 12 months’s nomination for Beyonce’s formidable “Cowboy Carter” — which took the nation {industry} to process by illustrating the wealthy however undersung historical past of Black artists in that style — brings the problem into sharp focus.
– Finest new artists helm the stage –
Hip-hop laureate Kendrick Lamar is one other huge title to look at on Sunday: his rap battle with Drake spawned “Not Like Us,” one of many 12 months’s most viral songs which earned him seven nods.
Submit Malone, who just lately labored with each Beyonce and Swift, scored eight, and each have probabilities at prizes within the high classes.
The carefully watched Finest New Artist contest options favorites Carpenter and Roan, who each skyrocketed into the mainstream over the previous 12 months.
Roan specifically skilled a supersonic ascent, and quite a lot of critics have tipped her as a reputation to beat for finest file and finest music.
Additionally in competition is Shaboozey, whose hit “A Bar Track (Tipsy)” topped the US sizzling songs chart for weeks and can be up for the Track of the 12 months Grammy honoring songwriting.
A tiny fraction of the 94 Grammys are handed out within the marquee televised portion of the gala, with a lot of the night devoted to performances.
Artists together with Eilish, Roan, Charli XCX and Carpenter are because of take the stage, together with a number of extra Finest New Artist contenders like Boone, Doechii and Teddy Swims.
Legends Stevie Marvel and Herbie Hancock can even seem in the course of the gala, which can pay tribute to the late super-producer Quincy Jones.
AFP
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