Awards
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She’s got big Swift energy! Latto declared herself a fan of Taylor Swift by posting a selfie with the superstar from the 2023 Grammy Awards on Monday (Feb. 6).
In the snapshot, Latto sticks her tongue out as Tay plants a kiss on her cheek from her table at Crypto.com Arena. “Swiftie,” the rapper wrote simply in the caption, using a clinking champagne emoji and a pink heart to punctuate her sentiment.
Both artists were nominated at this year’s Grammy Awards, with Swift winning the prize for best music video (for All Too Well: The Short Film) and earning nods for song of the year (for the 10-minute version of the Red (Taylor’s Version) favorite) and best country song (for “I Bet You Think About Me (Taylor’s Version) (From the Vault)”), while Latto was up for both best new artist and best melodic rap performance (for the live version of her breakthrough hit “Big Energy”).
Elsewhere in the ceremony, the Midnights singer reunited with ex-boyfriend Harry Styles, who eventually went on to win not only best pop vocal album, but also album of the year for his 2022 album Harry’s House. She also celebrated Viola Davis reaching EGOT status on her personal social media accounts following the How to Get Away with Murder actor’s historic win for best audio book, narration, and storytelling recording.
Before she lost out on the best new artist trophy to Samara Joy, Latto opened up to Billboard ahead of this year’s Grammys about why she still considers herself a new artist, reasoning, “Every month I feel like I’m constantly evolving. Especially the content I’m about to roll out — it’s a whole fresh new me.”
Get a look at Latto and Taylor’s Grammys meet-up below.
It’s officially a wrap on all the festivities surrounding music’s biggest night.
The 65th annual Grammy Awards took place on Sunday night from Los Angeles’ Crypto.com Arena, and the ceremony itself — chock-full of showstopping performances, including Bad Bunny’s shimmy-worthy mambo and merengue fusion of “El Apagon” and “Después de la Playa,” a hits-filled medley with the biggest names in hip-hop over the past 50 years, and a team-up between Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson and Chris Stapleton to pay tribute to Motown — concluded with several surprises before its famous attendees jetted off to star-studded afterparties.
Samara Joy won best new artist and best jazz vocal album for her 2022 sophomore effort Linger Awhile. Naturally, the New York City native was all smiles when it came time to party, showing up at the Universal Music Group afterparty looking like the winner she is and posing for photos alongside the record label’s CEO Lucian Grange.
Kim Petras — who won the award for best pop duo/group performance for her and Sam Smith’s “Unholy” and became the first transgender winner in the category in one fell swoop — was also in attendance at the Universal Music Group afterparty, where she posed alongside EVP Michele Anthony for a snap.
Album of the year winner Harry Styles also made an appearance at the afterparties, posing with country artist Orville Peck and several label executives at Sony Music Entertainment’s post-Grammys reception after a big night at the ceremony, which also included wins in the best pop vocal album for Harry’s House and a dazzling performance of “As It Was.”
See more artists, including friendship duos SZA & H.E.R. and Olivia Rodrigo & Conan Gray, in Billboard‘s Grammy afterparties gallery below.
Sunday night’s Grammy Awards found their biggest audience in three years, early TV ratings indicate.
Fast national ratings from CBS and Paramount+ show that 12.4 million viewers tuned in to the 2023 Grammys on Sunday night, according to The Hollywood Reporter. (THR will have final ratings on Tuesday morning.) The 2022 show drew 9.59 million viewers, meaning this year’s telecast saw a 30 percent bump year over year.
The last biggest audience for the Grammys was at the pre-pandemic January 2020 awards show, which drew 18.69 million viewers.
Paramount+ says the 2023 Grammys drew the biggest livestreaming audience in the streamer’s history, though no exact numbers were provided to The Hollywood Reporter.
The 2023 Grammy Awards, emceed by third-time host Trevor Noah, awarded the night’s Big Four prizes to a quartet of artists: Harry Styles’ Harry’s House won album of the year, Lizzo’s “About Damn Time” won record of the year, Bonnie Raitt’s “And Just Like That” won song of the year, and jazz singer Samara Joy won best new artist.
Standout performances included Bad Bunny’s euphoric opening number of “El Apagón” and “Después de la Playa”; the Questlove-led 50th-anniversary salute to hip-hop, which included artists from Queen Latifah to GloRilla; and Sam Smith and Kim Petras’ crimson-hued spectacle of eventual best pop duo/group recording winner “Unholy.”
It was one of the most jaw-dropping moments at the 2023 Grammy Awards on Sunday Feb. 5, when last year’s best new artist winner, Olivia Rodrigo, announced her successor.
It was a wide-open field, with no obvious winner such as Rodrigo or Billie Eilish, the 2020 champ. Latto and Måneskin were widely seen as the front-runners, with several other artists (Anitta, Muni Long, Molly Tuttle and Wet Leg) thought to be within striking distance.
The award instead went to Samara Joy, a 23-year-old jazz singer whose chances of winning were discounted by many pop-focused fans. They had much the same reaction 12 years ago to another talented jazz artist, Esperanza Spalding, and she wound up winning too — even among some stacked pop competition.
Joy won a second award on the night — best jazz vocal album for her second album, Linger Awhile. (She beat, among others, Cécile McLorin Salvant, a three-time winner in that category.)
Three of this year’s other best new artist candidates also went home with Grammys. Wet Leg won two awards – best alternative music album for Wet Leg and best alternative music performance for “Chaise Longue.” Long won best R&B performance for “Hrs & Hrs.” Tuttle won best bluegrass album for Crooked Tree (a collab with Golden Highway).
The other nominees in the category this year were Omar Apollo, Tobe Nwigwe and DOMi & JD Beck, whose Not Tight was nominated for best contemporary instrumental album.
So how did Joy pull off this surprise win? Here are six factors that likely played a role:
Jay-Z shared his unfiltered thoughts about the Grammys in a new interview conducted ahead of the ceremony and published on Monday (Feb. 6), after Beyoncé lost out on album of the year for the fourth time.
“I remove myself from the process and hope they just get it right. It got to the point where I was like, it’s just a marketing thing,” he told TIDAL about the race for album of the year days before the winner was announced. “You go, you got an album out and it could help the sales go up. It got to that point, but deep down … Again, we grew up idolizing this. It was like one of the pillars for us.”
However, despite his perspective on the award, Hov still maintained that his wife deserved the top prize for her acclaimed 2022 album, Renaissance. “Look what it’s done to the culture. Look how the energy of the world moved,” the rapper argued. “They play her whole album in the club. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen that. The whole entire joint — like, everything?! Every remix is amazing. Everyone’s inspired. It has inspired the world.”
Although album of the year ultimately went to Harry Styles for Harry’s House, Queen Bey walked away from the ceremony with four more Grammy awards — including best R&B song for “Cuff It” and best dance/electronica album. The latest awards from The Recording Academy brought her total career Grammy wins to 32, officially making her the most-awarded artist in Grammy history.
Meanwhile, Jay-Z, who’s won a total of 24 Grammys himself over the years, closed out the telecast by performing “God Did” with collaborators DJ Khaled, Rick Ross, Lil Wayne, John Legend and Fridayy.
It’s uncertain whether Lizzo‘s “I Love You Bitch,” the fifth song on her 2022 album Special, was written about Harry Styles — but it easily could have been. The two stars — and recent Grammy winners — are certifiably besties for the resties, as demonstrated by their adorable reunion at the Grammy Awards Sunday night (Feb. 5).
The pair was photographed wrapping each other in the biggest hug once they saw each other on the floor of Los Angeles’ Crypto.com Arena, where this year’s ceremony was held. Though both Styles and Lizzo were competitors in the categories for some of the night’s biggest awards, they could be seen celebrating each other’s wins.
The “As It Was” singer was captured on camera beaming and excitedly clapping for Lizzo when her name was called for record of the year, which she won for her Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hit “About Damn Time.” The feat made Lizzo the first Black woman since Whitney Houston in 1994 to win the award, something she later pointed out and celebrated on Instagram.
“I don’t take this lightly,” the Yitty founder wrote, sharing a selfie with Adele in the carousel. “Thank you.”
And when Styles was announced the winner of album of the year for Harry’s House, the “Truth Hurts” musician/flute extraordinaire could be seen holding up her own phone to record her pal as he made his way to the stage, stopping on his way up to give her a huge hug.
Lizzo also posted a couple selfies taken with the former boyband moments before he won. She also snapped pics with Adele and Beyoncé, who scored wins of their own that night.
Styles and Lizzo have been friends since 2020 and mutual fans of one another’s music before that. They’ve covered each other’s songs, complimented each other numerous times publicly and performed together onstage at Coachella 2022, when the “Watermelon Sugar” singer-songwriter invited Lizzo to join him as a guest.
See their winning moments at this year’s Grammys below:
Liam Payne and Niall Horan each took to social media on Monday morning (Feb. 6) to celebrate Harry Styles winning album of the year at the 2023 Grammy Awards.
“Wow… this image is really something to wake up to,” Payne wrote alongside a black-and-white shot of his one-time bandmate gazing in awe at the Grammy in his hands, “and when you write music like you do Harry you deserve every millisecond of that moment looking down smiling at the trophy you’ve earned. God bless you brother congratulations.”
Horan, meanwhile, posted an aerial shot from the ceremony at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles during Styles’ big win, writing, “very proud @harrystyles” with a red heart emoji on his Instagram Stories. (As of press time, the other two-fifths of One Direction — Louis Tomlinson and Zayn Malik — have yet to post anything publicly about Styles.)
In addition to winning the biggest award of the night, Styles also took home the golden gramophone for best pop vocal album and performed his No. 1 smash “As It Was” during the telecast.
Visibly awestruck at beating out the likes of Adele, Beyoncé, Lizzo and more in the race for album of the year, he said, “Man, I’ve been so, so inspired by every artist in this category with me. A lot of different times in my life, I listened to everyone in this category when I’m alone…This is really really kind … this doesn’t happen to people like me very often, and this is so nice, thank you very much.”
See Payne’s shout-out to Styles below and check out Horan’s here before it expires.
It’s safe to say that Lizzo had a very special night at the Grammys. Not only did the 34-year-old bop star take home the grand prize for record of the year with her chart-topping hit “About Damn Time” Sunday night (Feb. 5), but she also got to party with a star-packed group of friends — Adele, Beyoncé and Harry Styles — all of whom, by the way, also earned a golden Gramophone or two of their own.
The Yitty founder posted a handful of photos she took while at the ceremony to Twitter, and posed for several more snapped by professional photographers at the event. In one that will surely become a flagship picture of 2020s glamour one day — in the same way that black-and-white photos of Marilyn Monroe or Audrey Hepburn have lived on to symbolize old Hollywood allure — Beyoncé stands with Lizzo on her left and Adele on her right, each of them looking glossy and gorgeous in shimmering gowns.
The “Truth Hurts” singer-songwriter posted a couple of these professional-grade photos to Instagram, writing, “I won.”
In her selfies, Lizzo and her famous friends look less poised, but appears they’re having a whole lot of fun. She snapped photos with Adele, whose “Easy On Me” won best pop vocal performance, big smiles on both their faces. Beyoncé can be seen standing onstage in the background accepting best dance/electronic album, which officially made her the most awarded artist in Grammys history.
“Selfie as Beyoncé casually makes herstory,” Lizzo tweeted.
In another Instagram post, Lizzo and Adele celebrated her win for record of the year. “The last time a black woman won Record of the Year was Whitney Houston for ‘I Will Always Love You’… I don’t take this lightly. Thank you,” she captioned the carousel, which featured the twosome in the second selfie with Lizzo’s trophy.
And of course, the “Good as Hell” musician had to pose for some selfies with her bestie Harry Styles, who later won album of the year for Harry’s House. In one, she makes a funny face while the “As It Was” singer, who last year had Lizzo join him as a surprise guest during his Coachella performance, smiles with his mouth wide open.
In addition to winning big and making memories with some of the biggest names in music, Lizzo delivered a stunning performance of “Special” — the title track of her fourth studio album, which was also up for album of the year Sunday night — and parts of “About Damn Time.” When her name was read off as the winner for record of the year, she tearfully thanked her family, producers and her idol, who just so happened to be right there in the audience cheering her on.
“Beyoncé,” she said from onstage. “In the fifth grade I skipped school to see you perform … You changed my life. You sang that gospel medley and the way you made me feel, I was like, I want to make people feel this way with my music. So thank you so much! You clearly are the artist of our lives.”
See Lizzo’s Grammy pictures with Adele, Beyoncé and Harry Styles below:
Stars descended on L.A.’s Crypto.com Arena on Sunday (Feb. 5) for the 65th annual Grammy Awards, with everyone from Bad Bunny and Lizzo to Harry Styles and Mary J. Blige taking the stage to perform.
And now that this year’s biggest night in music has officially come and gone, Billboard wants to know which star-studded performance still had you talking come Monday morning.
The artist otherwise known as Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio opened the ceremony with a delightful mash-up of “El Apagón” and “Después de la Playa” off his bestselling album Un Verano Sin Ti, paying tribute to his native Puerto Rico with a colorful entourage of cabezudos and merengue dancers.
Ahead of her win for record of the year, Lizzo brought the house down with a joyful revisiting of “About Damn Time” and the title track off Special, just before Styles recreated the music video for “As It Was” by bringing the giant red turntable to the stage.
Of course, one of the most-talked-about moments of the night came when LL Cool J introduced the all-star tribute to the 50th anniversary of hip-hop, which brought pioneers and legends such as Salt-N-Pepa, Public Enemy, Missy Elliott and Busta Rhymes together with the new guard of GloRilla, Lil Uzi Vert and Lil Baby for a 23-song medley that was nothing short of electrifying — gigantic Ruff Ryders flag flying high about the Grammys stage included.
This year’s In Memoriam segment was also particularly touching as Quavo memorialized the late Takeoff in between Kacey Musgraves‘ restrained performance of “Coal Miner’s Daughter” for Loretta Lynn and Mick Fleetwood teaming up with Sheryl Crow and Bonnie Raitt to honor Christine McVie with “Songbird.”
Elsewhere in the telecast, Sam Smith and Kim Petras opened the gates of hell for “Unholy” after making history with their win for best pop duo/group performance, Blige belted out “Good Morning Gorgeous” looking nothing less than absolutely glam, and DJ Khaled rounded up a rogue’s gallery of Fridayy, Rick Ross, Lil Wayne John Legend and Jay-Z to close out the show with “God Did.”
Vote for your favorite musical number of the 2023 Grammys in Billboard‘s official poll below!
As he was during his acceptance speech at the 2023 Grammy Awards on Sunday night (Jan. 5) after winning album of the year for his Harry’s House LP, after the broadcast Harry Styles was humble and gracious in talking about coming out on top over some serious competition. In a press room interview following the awards, Styles was asked by Billboard about the many headlines going into the night focused on the possibility that Beyoncé would finally score an album of the year prize for her dance-heavy Renaissance collection.
“I think… you never know with this stuff… I don’t think you can look at any of the nominees and not feel like they’re deserving,” said Styles while cradling his golden gramophone in his left hand. “When I look at this category it’s all people who’ve inspired me at different times. It’s not like.. you would understand anyone winning. I’m really grateful they chose us.”
Styles won out over albums from Bey, Adele (30), a rebooted ABBA (Voyage), Bad Bunny (Un Verano Sin Ti) Mary J. Blige (Good Morning Gorgeous (Deluxe), Brandi Carlile (In These Silent Days), Coldplay (Music of the Spheres), Kendrick Lamar (Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers) and Lizzo (Special). Styles also took home the best pop vocal album award for House. And though Queen Bey was thwarted a fourth time in her bid for an AOTY honor, she became the most-decorated artist in Grammy history when she scooped her 32nd trophy for best dance/electronic album on Sunday; her win vaulted the singer over late conductor Georg Solti for most Grammy wins of all-time.
At the same press appearance, Styles was asked if he and his co-producers (Kid Harpoon and Tyler Johnson) have begun work on the follow-up to Harry’s House. “We’ve always tried to not really stop writing because it feels like you have this big stop and then you come back to it and it can feel like you’re either trying to prove something or trying to follow something up, so we’re kind of just always writing.”
Check out Harry’s answer below.