The Recording Academy celebrated the year’s music during their 66th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday (Feb. 4) at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles.
During the pre-show ceremony, Atlanta rapper Killer Mike swept all the rap categories including Best Rap Album (Michael). The album’s “Scientist & Engineers” record featuring Future, Andre 3000, and Eryn Allen Kane also won Best Rap Song and Best Rap Performance.
“Keep running your race,” he said during his acceptance speech. “If you think you think you can jump 20 feet, jump 40. It is our responsibility to be grand at everything. The only thing that limits you is you. The only thing that limits your age is not being truthful about your age.”
Following his win, the 48-year-old rapper, born Michael Render, was arrested at the award show in connection of a physical altercation at the arena. He was booked on a misdemeanor battery charge and was released.
SZA, who performed “Snooze” and “Kill Bill” during the ceremony, had a victorious evening winning Best R&B Song (“Snooze“), Best Progressive R&B Album (SOS), and Best Pop Duo/Group Performance (“Ghost In The Machine“) featuring Phoebe Bridgers. Victoria Monet won this year’s Best New Artist and Best R&B Album with Jaguar 2, while Coco Jones’ “ICU” took Best R&B Performance.
In addition to SZA’s performance, other highlighted performances included Travis Scott’ who a UTOPIA ‘s medley pf “My Eyes,” I Know,” “Fe!n” with Playboi Carti. For Burna Boy’s performance, he ran through “On Form,” “City Boys,” and brought out both 21 Savage and Brandy for “Sittin’ on Top of the World”.
Other big wins throughout the evening included Lil Durk and J.Cole’s “All My Life” winning Best Melodic Rap Performance and PJ Morton and Susan Carol’s “Good Morning” earning Best Traditional R&B Performance. Tyla’s hit “Water” won Best African Music Performance and Julian Marley & Antaeus’ Colors Of Royal took Best Reggae Album.
JAY-Z was the recipient of the second Dr. Dre Global Impact Award and utilized his acceptance speech to share some grievances with the Grammys.
“We want y’all to get it right. At least getting close to right. And obviously it’s subjective,” said JAY with his daughter Blue Ivy beside him. “Y’all don’t gotta clap at everything. Obviously it’s subjective because, you know, it’s music and it’s opinion-based,” the artist started.”
“But, you know, some things — I don’t want to embarrass this young lady, but she has more Grammys than everyone and never won album of the year,” he continued in reference to wife Beyonce who was in the audience. “So even by your own metrics, that doesn’t work. Think about that. The most Grammys, never won album of the year. That doesn’t work,.”
He added, “”You know, some of you gonna go home tonight and feel like you’ve been robbed. Some of you may get robbed. Some of you don’t belong in a category. No, when I get nervous I tell the truth. The truth is, we grew up wanting to be on the Grammys, and it was our goal. We just want them to get it right. That’s what we want.”
JAY then capped off his speech with the following “Outside of that, you know, we got to keep showing up and forget the Grammys for a second. Just in life. As my daughter just sits and stares at me nervous as I am. Just in life, you got to keep showing up. Just keep showing up. Forget the Grammys you got to keep showing up until they give you all those accolades you feel you deserve. Until they call you Chairman, until they call you a genius until they call you the greatest of all time. You feel me?”
Photos: Johnny Nunez
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