Rapper Kendrick Lamar on Monday received a near-record number of Grammy Award nominations, with pop superstar Taylor Swift leading for the most prestigious categories.
Rapper Kendrick Lamar on Monday received a near-record number of Grammy Award nominations, with pop superstar Taylor Swift leading for the most prestigious categories. Lamar, who has won wide critical acclaim for his politically charged latest album To Pimp a Butterfly, earned 11 nominations for the music industry’s biggest awards, the highest number in a single night other than Michael Jackson’s 12 nods in 1984 during the King of Pop’s Thriller days. Swift and The Weeknd, the rising Canadian R&B star, followed Lamar with seven nominations each for the Grammys, which will be announced at a gala ceremony in Los Angeles on February 15. But Swift was ahead in the four most-watched categories, with nominations in all of them except Best New Artist. She enjoyed nods for Album of the Year for 1989, last year’s bestselling US album by far that marked her transition from country to pop, as well as Record of the Year and Song of the Year for her hit Blank Space. To Pimp a Butterfly and Beauty Behind the Madness, The Weeknd’s sophomore work, were also in contention for Album of the Year.
Meanwhile, sitarist Anoushka Shankar and Amy directorAsif Kapadia are among the Indian origin names featuring in the nominees list at the 58th Grammy awards, which were announced in Los Angeles on Monday. Shankar, 34, has been nominated in the Best World Music Album category for her solo album Home, which is a pure Indian classical album showcasing the meditative and virtuosic qualities of the Indian raga.
Home features two ragas, one of which is a creation of her late father Ravi Shankar. This is her fifth nomination in the same category. Indo-British director Asif Kapadia features in the nominees list of Best Music Film category for Amy, his documentary on late singer Amy Winehouse.
Indian origin musician Jeff Bhasker features in the top category, Record of the Year, for Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars’ Uptown Funk. His other nomination is in the Producer of the Year, Non-Classical category.
The Afro Latin Jazz Suite in the Best Instrumental Composition category has garnered a nod to Indian origin Rudresh Mahanthappa.
He and fellow artistes will be competing with another Indian origin talent, composer David Balkrishnan (Confetti Man) in the same section. English singer and guitarist Ed Sheeran’s viral ballad Thinking Out Loud was also nominated for both Record of the Year, which considers overall performance, and Song of the Year, which recognises songwriting.
