Check out the nominees below and read the full 2025 GRAMMYs nominations list ahead of Music’s Biggest Night on Sunday, Feb. 2, 2025. Throughout the past year, Billie Eilish, Sabrina Carpenter, Charli xcx, and Chappell Roan proved why they’re at the top of pop’s current class. The Beatles and Kendrick Lamar both cemented their respective legacies, while Beyoncé and Taylor Swift continue to challenge their own musical boundaries. Nasty C and Lekaa Beats re-up on last month’s Confuse The Enemy EP by adding four new tracks to the new deluxe edition, starting with the Tiwa Savage-assisted “One Time.” Not only is Omar Apollo making his silver screen debut in Luca Guadagnino’s Queer, he’s also contributing original song “Te Maldigo” to the historical drama’s soundtrack.
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It came out in 2017, when a hard-ass rap record might just vault its way to the top of the Hot 100. On Friday at noon, with no warning, rapper Kendrick Lamar dropped a 12-track album across streaming services. To paraphrase a line from Kendrick’s “Not Like Us,” sometimes, you gotta pop out and show neighbors, and that’s what Lamar’s doing with GNX. It’s a dizzying musical journey with nods to everything from mariachi to retro-soul to smooth jazz to 90s Los Angeles G-funk, and lyrics with that so-dense-and-so-hype flow that makes Lamar the greatest rapper alive. To get a sense of where Lamar is coming from on DAMN., it helps to rewind his previous studio masterpiece, 2015’s To Pimp A Butterfly. The former is a jubilant image with Lamar surrounded by his boys from the hood as they stand on the front lawn of the White House, just outside its gates, like shirtless conquerors bearing ravenous grins and fist fulls of cash.
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As September unfolds, discover fresh tracks and albums from Miranda Lambert, Brantley Gilbert, Jordin Sparks, and Suki Waterhouse alongside major releases from Charli XCX, Troye Sivan, and more. Nine people charged in the indictment, including rapper Gunna, accepted plea deals before the trial began. Prosecutors dropped charges against one defendant after he was convicted of murder in an unrelated case. Except, if he had kept the coins, there would be no “little kid scams people; let’s get him!” narrative to inflate their value, so he wouldn’t have made any extra money. The other “investors” who ponied up for the coin were left holding a digital bag of worthless coins. The University of Cambridge will use your email address to send you our weekly research news email.
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- Despite his legendary artistry, Lamar has been faced with great measures of tragedy through his years.
- The Beatles and Kendrick Lamar both cemented their respective legacies, while Beyoncé and Taylor Swift continue to challenge their own musical boundaries.
- Kendrick follows that intro (“Blood”) with the Mike WiLL Made-It-produced “DNA.,” on which he goes on a lyrical warpath, taking personal inventory of his heritage of human contradiction.
The resulting single was called “The Symphony.” It got a fun Old West-themed video, but it never came anywhere near the Hot 100. Rappers scored a few Hot 100 hits in that moment, but they had to try really, really hard to get there. When Marley Marl and those Juice Crew guys made “The Symphony,” that wasn’t what they were trying to do. They were just trying to make the hardest record on earth, and they succeeded. “The Symphony” helped establish the convention of the posse cut, the chorus-free workout where a bunch of rap titans compete to see who can say the coldest shit, and it stands to this day as one of the great examples of the form. Charli xcx has long been one of the coolest girls in pop, and her sixth album brat cemented that fact.
Lamar was introduced to the California Senate by fellow Compton native Senator Isadore Hall III. The Senator applauded the rapper’s 10-year music career, but specifically picked out his work helping the youth of his home city, by supporting music and sports programs and donating hundreds of thousands of dollars. Lamar might be one of the biggest names in hip-hop right now, but he’s certainly not forgotten Compton — the city is the backdrop to much of his material, including the autobiographical good kid, m.A.A.d city. Instead, the thing that pushed “Humble” to the top was the release of Damn, which came out two weeks after the single. In 1988, the great Queens rap producer Marley Marl cut up the pounding riff from Otis Redding’s “Hard To Handle,” setting it to some hard, minimal drums and doing almost nothing else to decorate it. Marley brought in four of the hardnosed, unflappable rappers from his Juice Crew collective — Masta Ace, Craig G, Kool G Rap, heroin addiction and Big Daddy Kane — to flex effortlessly over that beat, sometimes throwing echo on their voices.
- But the record loudly announced its importance, and Kendrick Lamar became the type of rapper that Barack Obama might cite as his favorite.
- Before this year, Shaboozey was just another rising artist ready to make a name for himself.
- Two years later, Lamar circles back to celebrate the west on 2024’s GNX, a 12-track release that revels in the root of his love for hip-hop and California culture, from the lowriders to the rappers that laid claim to the golden state.
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Herein lies the appeal of the Hebrew Israelites, the black nationality Lamar lyrically aligns himself with on DAMN. “I’m an Israelite / Don’t call me black no mo’ / That word is only a color / It ain’t fact no mo’,” he raps on “YAH.” — a double-entendre of an exultation meant to simultaneously evoke Yahweh, the ancient Hebrew name of God. Dating as far back as the early 1900s, the Hebrew Israelites have proclaimed themselves direct descendants of the 10 lost tribes of ancient Israel. “We are a cursed people,” Lamar’s cousin, Carl Duckworth, says on the album via voicemail.
The single, co-written with Jack Antonoff, also marks Sabrina’s first No. 1 track on the Billboard Hot 100, sitting comfortably above “Espresso’s” No. 2 placement. “I think throughout the year, I’m like, “What can I get away with? ” Because right now it’s pretty tame for what it is like to be a gay artist,” Roan does kendrick lamar do drugs told GRAMMY.com in March. “But I just want to push it to see how far can I go — with the most controversial outfits or things to rile people up. I’m not really afraid to do that.” Chappell Roan grabbed the world’s attention with her bombastic interpretation of baroque pop and her knack for highlighting queer romance.
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Hidden in the tracklisting was a song called Like That with an uncredited verse by Kendrick Lamar… By taking these pivotal and impactful points in history and bringing movement to them he brings new conversations and ideas. It is now no longer something we look back on but something we look forward through as well. Rather than a past observation of what was, through the use of motion and time it pulls into question the dynamics that still remain, what it means to have critical Black artists and how they engage with the past and present. In 2014, the rapper embarked on a five-stop world tour for charity. Nearly all of the proceeds from the tour, which began in Toronto, Canada, then headed to Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, before ending in his hometown, were donated to Habitat for Humanity and the city of Compton.
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It’s worth noting that the placement of Lamar’s verse is also significant, as Metro Boomin’ is a former Drake collaborator who fell out with the Canadian star. The achievement meant Drake tied with Michael Jackson for the most number one singles by a male solo artist. The song debuted at the top of the US singles chart, becoming Drake’s 13th and Cole’s first number-one song. “He’s a character that I know so well growing up in Compton,” Lamar says.