The biggest night in the music industry calendar is upon us as the 67th Grammy Awards takes place in Los Angeles this Sunday, February 2, 2025.
The great and good of the music business will celebrate the industry’s achievements with the most outstanding of them winning the famous golden gramophones.
The list of nominees in the 94 categories has intriguing contenders, from a group that won their first Grammy in 1964 and were back in the charts in 2024 with an AI-assisted song, to a Pulitzer Prize-winning rapper who may create history by winning a Grammy with a diss song for the first time ever.
Who would have imagined that the Beatles would be nominated for the Record of The Year award, six decades after the Fab Four won their first Grammy.
Thanks to AI-driven technology, Now and Then was produced after John Lennon voice was retrieved from a demo cassette recording made in the 1970s and combined with his former bandmates.
The Beatles are in competition for the award with Beyonce, Kendrick Lamar, Charlie XCX, Billie Eilish and Sabrina Carpenter (All of whom were not born by the time the Beatles broke up in 1970). The song is also nominated in the Best Rock Performance category.
Kendrick Lamar
Will this be the Pulitzer Prize-winning rapper’s crowning night as the GOAT [greatest of all time] of hip-hop? After a year spent in a lyrical spat with his nemesis Drake, the 17-time Grammy winner is in the running for Best Rap Song, Best Rap Performance, Song of the Year, Record of the Year and Best Music Video for Not Like Us.
The track which contains samples of violins, piano and brass instruments, from Monk Higgin’s 1968 song I Believe to My Soul, could become the first diss track in history to win a Grammy Award.
Beyonce
The 32-time Grammy winner has dominated the Pop and R&B categories in the past, but this year, Queen Bey’s 11 nominations for her album Cowboy Carter are spread across country, rap, and americana categories.
Fun fact: Beyonce’s 11 nominations this year equals that of Kendrick Lamar (2016) and Jon Batiste (2022). Only Michael Jackson (1984) and Babyface (1997) have received 12 Grammy nominations in a single year.
Will Cowboy Carter win Best Country Album and break the jinx of Beyonce never winning Album of the Year, the most prestigious award at the Grammys?
Best New Artist
This category has eye-catching nominations and it is anybody’s guess on who comes out on top because all the artistes here have been phenomenal: from country breakout star Shaboozey to former YouTube cover song artiste Teddy Swims, from Chappell Roan to Sabrina Carpenter.
The smart money has to be on 26-year-old flame-haired Roan who with her outspoken personality and fun songs, was a breath of fresh air in pop music in 2024.
Best Global Music Performance
No African artiste has won more Grammys than Angelique Kidjo: in her four decades in the music business, the singer from Benin has won five Grammy Awards.
This year she is nominated for her uplifting collaboration with the Soweto Gospel Choir in Sunlight to My Soul. The other African musician nominated in this category is also a familiar face at the Grammys: Ghanian Rocky Dawuni with his fourth nomination for Rise, an anthem for overcoming adversity and celebrating life’s victories.
Best African Music Award
Flashback to a year ago when Tyla, a 22-year-old singer from Johannesburg, South Africa, became the first ever winner of the Best African Music Performance Grammy award for her global hit song Water. The award was introduced last year to honour the global influence of the continent’s music industry.
This year’s hot tip is the Nigerian singer, songwriter, Tems, whose song Love Me Jeje is a favourite for the Best African Music Performance Grammy.
She faces competition from the biggest Afrobeats stars: Burna Boy, Yemi Alade, Asake and Wizkid, Davido and Lojay. Tems could end the night with two trophies if she also wins Best Global Album for Born in The Wild.
Performers
The memory of Nigerian Afrobeats star Burna Boy surrounded by drummers and dancers in colourful traditional costumes performing at the 2024 Grammys is still fresh in the mind.
This year’s lineup of performers is a showcase of artistes who have had an outstanding year, notably Billie Eilish and Sabrina Carpenter, who had the top two most streamed songs on Spotify in 2024.
The Grammy stage will also play host to 22-year-old Benson Boone whose meteoric rise has taken him from posting videos of himself singing on TikTok to a global star performing backflips on stage at venues around the world.
The Host
The South African comedian Trevor Noah returns to the Grammy stage as host for the fifth consecutive year having made the event all his own.
Incidentally in addition to being the host, the 40-year-old, is also a nominee with his album Where Was I nominated for Best Comedy Album.
Previous hosts who have also been nominees during the same year were Kenny Rogers (1980), Paul Simon (1981), John Denver (1984), Queen Latifah (2005).
