Month: February 2024

Late last year, Uproxx called Burna Boy the perfect ambassador for Afrobeats to the rest of the world, especially the United States, after his sold-out arena tour stop in Los Angeles. Tonight, he continued in that role with a medly performance of his songs, “On Form” and “Sittin On Top Of The World” on the 2024 66th Annual Grammy Awards.

Burna was joined in the latter by Brandy, whose song was sampled her 1998 hit “Top Of The World,” and 21 Savage, who performed a laid-back verse in the vein of Mase, who was featured on the original.

The performance — and Burna’s four nominations this year — proved why Burna has held the role since Afrobeats’ breakout stateside, as his magnetism emanted off the stage. Burna’s been one of the genre’s biggest artists for the past seven years after singing to Atlantic Records in the US in 2017 and releasing a string of critically-acclaimed, fan-favorite albums, which includes African Giant, Twice As Tall, Love, Damini, and 2023’s I Told Them….

The latter garnered Burna his four nominations this year: Best Global Music Album; Best African Music Performance for “City Boys”; Best Global Music Performance for “Alone”; and Best Melodic Rap Performance for “Sittin’ On Top Of The World.” Going into tonight’s ceremony Burna held one previous win for Twice As Tall , which took home Best Global Music Album at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards in 2021.

Watch Burna Boy’s performance above and check out Uproxx’s full 2024 Grammy Awards coverage here.

Burna Boy is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

The Grammys’ In Memoriam tribute for 2024 was necessarily a rough time, as so many legends passed away since early 2023, including Sinead O’Connor, Tina Turner, and more. The segment saw Stevie Wonder deliver a simulated duet of “For Once In My Life” with Tony Bennett, as well as “The Best Is Yet To Come.” Then Annie Lennox covered Sinead O’Connor’s Prince-penned “Nothing Compares 2 U.”

Fittingly, Lennox used the moment to call for a ceasefire in West Asia (commonly called the Middle East) in the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palenstine over the Gaza Strip. It was a fitting moment because O’Connor notably used her platform to make passionate political statements, including criticizing the Catholic church. She took a lot of punishment from the media and the public for her positions, finding vindication years later.

Meanwhile, there were spoken tributes to Clarence Avant, the “Godfather of Black Music,” form Lenny Kravitz, and Tina Turner, the Queen of Rock & Roll, by Oprah Winfrey. Meanwhile, Jon Batiste performed Bill Withers’ “Ain’t No Sunshine” and “Optimistic” for the former, while Fantasia Barrino performed “Proud Mary” for the latter, decked out in a classic Turner look. Fantasia even left the stage to dance with the audience, including Dua Lipa.

You can keep up with Uproxx’s Grammys coverage here.

The 2024 Grammy Awards took a trip to Utopia as Travis Scott brought his usual raucous energy to his performance.

Opening with a moody rendition of the introspective “My Eyes” and then broke out into a more energetic performance of “Fein,” replete with flamethrowers and strobing spotlights as mist surrounded his asteroid stage. He was joined by the song’s featured artist Playboi Carti, who worse a creepy mask, and spent the back half of his performance throwing chairs.

Travis is nominated for one award this year: Best Rap Album for Utopia, which dropped July 28, 2023, debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 496,000 album-equivalent units sold/streamed. 252,000 of those units were pure album sales.

The album arguably marked a return to form for the Houston rapper, who had been largely absent from the spotlight in the year following the tragic incident at the 2021 Astroworld Festival in which 10 fans were killed by a crowd crush and hundreds more were injured.

Since his return, Travis has been more of a ubiquitous marketing presence than ever, crisscrossing North America on his Circus Maxiumus tour for Utopia, releasing a new Nike collaboration alongside tennis legend John McEnroe, and even starring in a new film by Harmony Korine shot entirely in infrared false color.

Travis has been nominated for 10 Grammy Awards over the course of his career, including Best Rap Album for 2018’s Astroworld, Best Rap Song and Best Rap Performance for that album’s Drake-featuring single “Sicko Mode,” and Best Melodic Rap Performance for his 2021 single “Highest In The Room.”

Watch Travis’ performance above and check out the rest of Uproxx’s 2024 Grammys coverage here.

SZA has had an incredible night at the 2024 Grammy Awards tonight (February 4). During a special performance from the Grammy House, the prolific hitmaker — who already won two Grammys tonight, for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance for her Phoebe Bridgers collaboration, “Ghost In The Machine” and Best R&B Performance for “Snooze” — debuted a new song, “Saturn” from her upcoming album, Lana.

On the song, SZA laments her time in an environmentally unconscious world.

“Stuck in this paradigm / Don’t believe in paradise / This must be what hell is like / There’s got to be more, got to be more Sick of this head of minе / Intrusive thoughts, they paralyze / Thе fun is done, to summarize,” she sings on the song’s hook.

The accompanying advertisement features SZA joined by dancers, moving to the music in a greenscape. It ends with SZA announcing her partnership with MasterCard and the Priceless Planet Coalition. The Priceless Planet Coalition aims to restore 100 million trees in forests around the world that have the greatest potential positive impact on the climate, for communities and for nature.

“It takes more than one person or one company to create scaled impact for the planet,” said Rustom Dastoor, EVP of Marketing and Communications, Mastercard North America, in a statement. “Music does more than unite us, it inspires us to take action. Through our GRAMMY Awards campaign, we are merging passion and purpose in a way that, through a major cultural event, rallies people to come together through the power of music to create collective action for the planet.”

You can see the MasterCard ad above.

Taylor Swift made a surprise announcement during the 2024 Grammys that her 11th studio album, The Tortured Poets Department, is coming out this spring. There’s a cover, a poem, and as she revealed during her acceptance speech for Best Pop Vocal Album, she’s been working on it for the last two years. The Tortured Poets Department is also her longest album title and first album with more than one word in the title since 2010’s Speak Now.

What Is Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department A Reference To?

One popular theory is that it’s a reference to the Tortured Man Club, a group chat between All Of Us Strangers stars Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott and her ex-boyfriend Joe Alwyn. As one Swiftie wrote on X, “Am I the only one reminded of Joe Alwyn’s ‘Tortured Man Club’? I only say this cuz I was openly waiting for her breakup album, and it looks like this might be it. She’s the best when she’s in her feelings.”

Swift and Alwyn reportedly started dating in 2017 and were together until 2023. If she started working on the album two years ago, this would be mid-relationship (maybe there will be a song about attending the Cats premiere together?).

Or maybe it’s just a collection of words that she’s like. Who knows! We’ll find out on April 19th, when The Tortured Poets Department comes out.

Joni Mitchell has had a more esteemed career than most, and she’s just about done it all. 1971’s Blue is frequently in conversations about the greatest albums of all time, she’s a member of the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, and she’s won a good handful of Grammy Awards between 1969 and present day: Joni Mitchell At Newport (Live) was up for Best Folk Album and it won that award during the pre-show.

One thing she somehow hadn’t done before today, though, was perform at the Grammys. Now, at 80 years old, she’s done it, as she took the stage during this year’s ceremony to sing “Both Sides, Now” (which got renewed attention recently thanks to the movie Coda). She was accompanied by Lucius, Jacob Collier, Blake Mills, Brandi Carlile, and others. It was a stirring performance, with Mitchell owning the room as she and her collaborators were seated in ornate chairs and moody lighting. It was quite the showing and it deserved the standing ovation it got.

The performance was especially noteworthy considering Mitchell hasn’t spent a ton of time on stages in recent years. The 2022 Newport Folk Festival performance (the one captured on the aforementioned Grammy-winning album) was her first full concert since 2002. Notably, she had a brain aneurysm in 2015 that left her in rough shape. In a 2022 interview, she revealed that she had to re-learn how to play guitar.

Mitchell plans to take the stage again in the near future, too: Days ago, it was announced she and Brandi Carlile are playing a special Hollywood Bowl concert in October.

Check out Mitchell’s performance above. Find the full list of 2024 Grammy nominees and winners here.

Jay-Z‘s sense of humor was on full display — for better or worse — during his acceptance speech at the 2024 Grammys as he received the Dr. Dre Global Impact Award alongside his daughter Blue Ivy. While he self-deprecatingly teased himself for being unable to fully boycott the awards show, he also took the opportunity to air out his feelings about the Recording Academy snubbing his wife Beyoncé for Album of the Year for multiple years.

“I don’t wanna embarrass this young lady but she has more Grammys than everyone and never won Album of the Year,” he said. “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 also joked that some of the nominees didn’t deserve their nominations, which… Look, I’ll write that one later. We’ve always known Jay don’t play about Beyoncé, but giving him a mic at this year’s awards may have backfired on those who admitted that they voted against Beyoncé out of spite.

Not for nothing, fans were amused and impressed by the speech because Jay was only saying some things that fans have been saying a good, long while. But, of course, his joking admission that he can’t quit the show completely made him relatable and took some of the sting out of his words.

From the choices of embedded tweets here, you probably know where this writer stands. If not, read this, then check out the rest of our Grammys coverage here.

Music’s biggest night! The 2024 Grammys are here, and at this point, there have been outcomes that one disgruntled fan base or another is surely flooding social media about. When it comes to Song Of The Year, though, the category is stacked, and it’s hard to pick one song above the others that undoubtedly deserves to win.

Ultimately, though, one song did have to claim the crown, and this year, it’s Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For?.”

Also nominated were Dua Lipa’s “Dance The Night,” Jon Batiste’s “Butterfly,” Lana Del Rey’s “A&W,” Miley Cyrus’ “Flowers,” Olivia Rodrigo’s “Vampire,” SZA’s “Kill Bill,” and Taylor Swift’s “Anti-Hero.” Solid list.

The category was a strong presence for the Barbie movie, as Lipa and Eilish’s hits from the film both got nods. Beyond that, a lot of this year’s nominees previously topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart: The songs by Cyrus, Rodrigo, and Swift were all No. 1 in 2023. (SZA nearly made that list, too, with “Kill Bill” topping out at No. 2.) Meanwhile, Batiste’s nomination follows an absolutely massive year he had at the 2022 Grammys, where he had 11 nominations and five wins.

Find the full list of 2024 Grammy nominees and winners here.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Music’s biggest night has delivered some epic moments. From SZA’s and Miley Cyrus‘ performances to Taylor Swift announcing an album out of nowhere, the crowd at the 2024 Grammys appears to be more engaged than ever. It certainly helps when you have a fantastic host. Unlike another comedian (who shall not be named), Trevor Noah has done a phenomenal job thus far.

Although the attendees and at-home viewers are tuned to see who walks away with a trophy, the esteemed ceremony is the perfect place for recording artists to make music-related announcements. During the broadcast, “High Horse” singer Kacey Musgraves did just that.

Musgraves secured a commercial slot at the 2024 Grammys to announce her next album. In the visual, captioned: “I found a deeper well,” Musgraves explores the world in search of peace with stops in the meadows. Just days ago, Musgraves first teased the forthcoming release with a booty-baring photo on her official X (previously Twitter) page.

No further information hasn’t been shared about the project. However, the title of the commercial on YouTube suggests that it could be titled, My Saturn Has Returned.... Find more information here.

Watch the commercial above.

View Uproxx’s complete coverage of the 2024 Grammy Awards here. Check out the complete list of winners during the evening here.

Taylor Swift debuted the title of her new album during the 2024 Grammys. The Tortured Poets Department comes out on April 19.

Swift made the announcement while accepting the award for Best Pop Vocal Album. “OK, this is my 13th Grammy, which is my lucky number. I don’t know if I’ve ever told you that,” she said. “I want to say thank you to the members of the Recording Academy for voting this way, but I know that the way that the Recording Academy voted is a direct reflection of the passion of the fans. So I want to say thank you to the fans by telling you a secret that I have been keeping from you for the last two years, which is that my brand-new album comes out April 19th. It’s called The Tortured Poets Department. I’m going to go and post the cover right now backstage. Thank you, I love you! Thank you!”

She did just that:

The poem on the cover reads:

And so I enter into evidence
My tarnished coat of arms
My muses, acquired like bruises
My talismans and charms
The tick,
tick,
tick
of love bombs
My veins of pitch black ink
All’s fair in love and poetry…Sincerely,
The Chairman of the Tortured Poets Department

You can pre-order The Tortured Poets Department, her 11th album, on Swift’s website. Here’s the album announcement.

So much for Reputation (Taylor’s Version).