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When Bob Dylan arrived in New York City in January 1961, he was a 19-year-old from Minnesota armed with an acoustic guitar and a head full of Woody Guthrie songs. His early recordings from that period — many featured on the just-released The Bootleg Series Volume 18: Through the Open Window, 1956-1963 — reveal a young artist still finding his voice, often mimicking the melodies and vocal styles of his heroes.
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Within a few months, Dylan would go through a transformation. The young singer-songwriter became an interpreter of others’ works, imbuing them with a unique character missing on earlier recordings. “The story of Volume 18 is Bob Dylan becoming Bob Dylan,” Sean Wilentz tells Billboard’s Behind the Setlist podcast. Wilentz, author of the 2010 book Dylan in America, wrote Volume 18‘s detailed, often fascinating 125-page liner notes that provides historical context for the expansive eight-CD set. “It’s about his coming of age, his maturation — first as a performer and then as a songwriter — to become the person that we think of [today].”
With Dylan surrounded by folk, blues, jazz and comedians such as Lenny Bruce, his artistic growth began immediately upon arriving in the Village in early 1961. By the time he was recording his self-titled debut album in November, Dylan had gained an ability to transform somebody else’s song and make it his own. “People will either imitate or they’ll just do a kind of a superficial rewrite,” says Wilentz, a professor of history at Princeton University. Dylan was an imitator when he moved to New York. Just a year later, who would write “Blowin’ in the Wind” and change the course of American music.
Dylan spent these formative months working relentlessly on his craft, writing songs just about anywhere he could. “He can be in the middle of a subway car and he’s writing a song,” says Wilentz. “He’s always writing songs — but he’s doing more than that. He’s learning how to play the guitar. He’s learning how to emote. He’s learning all kinds of things, and he’s working very hard at it. He’s also learning the entire spectrum of American song in a way that most kids just didn’t.”
This wasn’t just artistic growth — it was a metamorphosis. Dylan was no longer mimicking the artists who came before him; he was reshaping songs in his unique style. Wilentz points to Dylan’s recording of the Guthrie’s “Ramblin’ Round,” an outtake that appears on the first CD of Volume 18 as being emblematic of this evolution. “It’s fantastic,” Wilentz says. “You listen to it closely and it’s not Woody Guthrie at all, but it is Woody Guthrie. [Dylan] has turned it into his own song.” “Ramblin’ Round” doesn’t just pay homage — it reimagines Guthrie. Like many of the tracks on Volume 18, it’s a glimpse into an artist who would eventually reshape the American songbook.
Listen to the entire interview with Bob Dylan historian Sean Wilentz using the embedded Spotify player below, or go to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, iHeart, Podbean or Everand.
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A ripped piece of paper floats in front of EJAE’s face as she giggles with her castmates Rei Ami and Audrey Nuna over a video call. “My manager gave me a list of adjectives to use,” she says over Zoom, unable to stop herself from cackling.
Nuna immediately smirks. “Read them for us,” she shouts. The catalog includes gems like “incredible,” “humble,” “privileged,” and “accomplished,” but all three women immediately lock onto the inclusion of “breathtaking” on this list. “‘Breathtaking’ is good,” Ami laughs.
They’re all accurate words to describe exactly how the three members of the semi-fictional girl group HUNTR/X feel on Friday (Nov. 7), considering that EJAE, Ami and Nuna have just earned four Grammy nominations for their work together on the breakout hit Netflix film KPop Demon Hunters.
Alongside two standard nominations related to music for film — “Golden” earned a nod for best song written for visual media while the movie’s soundtrack notched a nomination for best compilation soundtrack for visual media — HUNTR/X also received two major category nominations, for best pop duo/group performance, and for song of the year, both for “Golden.”
So yes, “breathtaking” feels like a good word to describe the trio’s feelings. “The breaths have been snatched from our bodies,” Nuna says. “Our hearts are being pulled in so many different directions. But above all, I think we’re just very, very, very grateful to be a part of what feels like a very cultural and historic moment, and something that as kids we would have we craved so bad to see. Being a part of it is just really surreal.”
The nominations are just the latest piece of what has been a cultural takeover for KPop Demon Hunters. Not only has the film become Netflix’s most-watched movie in the platform’s history, but the music from the soundtrack — written primarily by EJAE, Mark Sonnenblick and a host of other well-established K-pop songwriters — has dominated the charts. “Golden” spent a whopping eight weeks at the summit of the Hot 100 and remains steady at No. 2 this week. The entirety of the soundtrack, meanwhile, earned two weeks at the top of the Billboard 200, and remains at No. 2 today.
For EJAE, who spent the last decade writing hit songs for K-pop acts like aespa, Twice and others, earning a Grammy nod specifically for her songwriting in the song of the year category is a fulfillment of a lifelong dream.
“It means so much, because I [was asked] in an interview once, ‘What’s a goal that you have?’ And mine was to get an award as a songwriter,” she says. “I don’t see many Asian women or Korean women in this industry, it’s hard to find, songwriter-wise. And so I hope that this can inspire others to keep going, because it felt impossible.”
The group’s nominations don’t only make history as a film-music crossover — they also make history for K-pop as a genre. With their four nominations, HUNTR/X becomes the first K-pop girl group to earn Grammy nominations, and one of two acts (alongside ROSÉ of Blackpink) to earn nominations in the same year, another first for the genre. Previously, only BTS had scored major nominations at the annual ceremony.
That lack of representation in the past is part of why many in the industry have begun asking whether or not K-pop should be represented with its own categories at the annual ceremony. For their part, all three members of HUNTR/X agree that K-pop does deserve to have space created for it at the Grammys. “It’s been proven that this is a genre that can really stand its own in the U.S. space, so it would make sense for this genre to be represented alongside so many other genres that are important to culture,” Nuna says.
With a soundtrack that has dominated music spaces around the globe for the past four months, KPop Demon Hunters has repeatedly defied expectations — which is in no small part why Ami feels particularly proud to be representing her community at the biggest music awards in the world. “As Korean women, from a very young age, we are taught to be quiet, to not be seen,” she says. “That really causes some weird cognitive dissonance early on, as Korean women who we are pursuing the art self expression where we have to be seen. We have to be loud and bold.”
But the singer makes it abundantly clear that while she, EJAE and Nuna remain incredibly grateful for their success, all three of them worked incredibly hard to earn these four nominations. “[KPop Demon Hunters] took nine years to create, there were endless demos, we have a legendary songwriter who has gone through the work of the industry, we have Audrey Nuna out on her own being an independent artist, we have the struggle that comes with being a solo Asian artist in America,” she says, her voice slowly rising. “We’ve had every door shut. We’ve been told, ‘You’re not good enough. You need to do more. You’re too Korean. You’re not American enough.’ So we deserve this. We worked very hard for this, and we are honored to have earned it.”
Trending on Billboard As nominations for the 2026 Grammys pour in, so are new music releases from artists who just might earn Recording Academy recognition for it next year — including Rosalía, Katy Perry, Kehlani and more. The buzziest release of the week might just be Lux, the long-awaited followup to 2022’s Motomami. The sprawling, […]
Trending on Billboard Five years after Cody Johnson first recorded his version of The Chicks’ hit “Travelin’ Soldier” during a livestream performance session, and three years after he released an acoustic performance rendition of the song, he has finally released his official version of the track. Explore See latest videos, charts and news In a […]
Trending on Billboard Daft Punk is making contact. As part of the new collaboration with Fortnite, the French duo has released a new video for track “Contact,” the epic closer of its 2013 Grammy-winning album, Random Access Memories. The new animated clip finds the robots careening through space and borrows imagery from Interstella 5555: The 5tory […]
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After winning his first Grammy this year for best R&B song with SZA’s “Snooze,” Leon Thomas could sweep almost every R&B category at the 68th annual Grammy Awards, as the nominations were announced Friday morning (Nov. 7).
While the continued success of his Billboard Hot 100 top 10 hit “Mutt” has proven Thomas is no underdog anymore, its “Live From NPR’s Tiny Desk” version is up for best R&B performance. (The original version was commercially released on Aug. 8, 2024, during the eligibility period for the 2025 Grammy Awards, and it was submitted for consideration then. Thomas released the 5-song Mutt (Live From NPR’s Tiny Desk) EP on Aug. 15, 2025, which qualifies for next year’s ceremony.) Its parent album, which shares the same title, is nominated for best R&B album, while its tracks “Vibes Don’t Lie” and “Yes It Is” are up for best traditional R&B performance and best R&B song, respectively.
Following Thomas, Durand Bernarr has the second most nominations in the R&B field with three: best traditional R&B performance (“Here We Are”), best R&B song (“Overqualified”) and best progressive R&B album (Bloom). He only scored his first Grammy nod ever this year in the best progressive R&B album category. “Folded,” arguably the biggest song of Kehlani’s career to date, has earned her her first Hot 100 top 10 hit and No. 1 on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs and Hot R&B Songs (charts dated Nov. 8), and now two Grammy nods for best R&B performance and best R&B song. While Kehlani has yet to win a Grammy, they’re poised to take home the gold for the first time next year.
“I’m not big [on letting] any award validate how great your art is. But it’s nice when the system in place or the hierarchy of what you’re doing in art recognizes that what you’re doing is great,” Kehlani told Billboard earlier this year while reflecting on her debut commercial mixtape You Should Be Here, which earned the star her first Grammy nod 10 years ago for best urban contemporary album.
Ledisi could snag her first best traditional R&B performance win in five years with “Love You Too,” the lead single from her 12th studio album The Crown, which is up for best R&B album. After the deluxe edition of 11:11 won best R&B album this year, Chris Brown returns to the best R&B performance field one year later with “It Depends,” featuring Bryson Tiller, which is also up for best R&B song. This week, “It Depends” rose to the No. 1 spot on R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay and spends a fifth week atop Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay. And one week before Summer Walker’s third studio album Finally Over It drops, its lead single “Heart of a Woman” earns two nomination for best R&B performance and best R&B song.
Five years ago, Teyana Taylor called out the Recording Academy for the male-dominated best R&B album category after she dropped her third studio album The Album. “Y’all was better off just saying best MALE R&B ALBUM cause all I see is d–k in this category,” she wrote on X. Now, she’s up for her first Grammy ever in this female-dominated category, with Escape Room coming alongside Ledisi with The Crown and Coco Jones with her debut album Why Not More? Bilal’s first album in nine years, Adjust Brightness, earns the dynamic singer/songwriter/musician his first Grammy in 10 years for best progressive R&B album. After their “Peaches” collaboration with Daniel Caesar scored Justin Bieber and Giveon a hefty sum of nominations at the 2022 Grammy Awards, where both lost in every category they were up in, both could avenge themselves in the R&B field, as Bieber is up for best R&B performance (with “Yukon”) for the first time since “Peaches” and Giveon is up for best R&B album (for Beloved) for the first time since Take Time scored a nod in 2021.
U.K. R&B acts like kwn and Odeal have made a lot of noise from across the pond this year, but FLO is the only one nominated for a Grammy next year, as the girl group earns its first nod for best progressive R&B album with its debut album Access All Areas. And after five songs from SZA’s blockbuster 2022 album SOS earned Grammy nods at the 2024 awards ceremony, where SZA was the most-nominated artist with nine total nods, one more is added to her collection: “Crybaby,” from the deluxe Lana edition of SOS, is up for best traditional R&B performance.
While Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason jr. welcomed The Weeknd back with open arms during the ceremony earlier this year, where he performed “Cry for Me” and “Timeless” with Playboi Carti, Grammy voters did not. His repeat shut out includes “Baptized in Fear” from his sixth studio album Hurry Up Tomorrow not being included in the best R&B song slate. Ravyn Lenae also surprisingly received zero nominations despite her R&B/pop crossover hit “Love Me Not” reaching No. 5 on the Hot 100 and, as Billboard’s awards editor Paul Grein put it, being “played on every pop radio station in America every hour on the hour during the voting period.” While “Love Me Not” competed in the pop field, “Love Is Blind” from the same Bird’s Eye album was submitted for best R&B song, and received no love.
Drake and PartyNextDoor’s “Somebody Loves Me” is nominated for best melodic rap performance, but its parent album $ome $exy $ongs 4 U isn’t up for best progressive R&B album as some might’ve expected. Mariah the Scientist’s breakthrough year isn’t captured by the 2026 nominations either, as “Burning Blue,” her first Hot 100 top 40 hit and first Rhythmic Airplay chart-topper, is looked over for both best R&B performance and best R&B song, and its parent album Hearts Sold Separately, her highest-charting Billboard 200 album (No. 11), isn’t up for best R&B album.
The 2026 Grammy Awards will be held on Sunday, Feb. 1 at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, California, airing live on CBS and Paramount+ Premium at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT.
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Not much rocked the Caribbean in October like Hurricane Melissa.
The historic storm made landfall in Jamaica (Oct. 28) and Cuba (Oct. 29), wrecked parts of Haiti, and caused heavy rain that resulted in fatal flooding across New York City. With a death toll of 75, as of Tuesday (Nov. 4), the devastation of Hurricane Melissa has spurred immediate action and support from some of Jamrock’s biggest stars. Shenseea, Beenie Man, Sean Paul and Spice have all documented their respective relief efforts via their respective social media channels, and, on Monday, Shaggy spoke with Billboard about what he saw on the ground in the immediate aftermath of the storm.
“We got [to Jamaica] early enough to reach the people, because it took me around six hours to get from Kingston to St. Elizabeth in Black River, which is normally a two-and-a-half-hour drive at most,” the reggae icon told Billboard. “We had to chop [tree] limbs down, move things out the way, and drive through high puddles of [runoff], so we got there in the middle of the night. At that point, all we could do was pass water out, so we had to regroup and drive six hours back to Kingston. The next day, we went to the Junction side of St. Elizabeth, which took us four hours. The square itself was shut down. It was ground zero because it wasn’t livable anymore. Nobody could stay there.”
In addition to Shaggy’s efforts alongside the Global Empowerment Mission, verified aid channels include World Food Programme, Project HOPE, GiveDirectly, American Friends of Jamaica, Food for the Poor and Friends of Caritas Cuba.
In lighter news, Trinidadian soca star Mical Teja made headlines after he shared a picture with his locs cut off, A$AP Rocky once again stoked marriage rumors by referring to himself as Rihanna’s “loving husband,” and Chronixx returned with Exile, his first new album in eight years.
Naturally, Billboard’s monthly Reggae/Dancehall Fresh Picks column will not cover every last track, but our Spotify playlist — which is linked below — will expand on the 10 highlighted songs. So, without any further ado:
Trilla-G & V’ghn, “Take Me as I Am”
The genre proves to be very much alive and well with The Recording Academy unveiling the 2026 Grammy nominations on Friday (Nov. 7).
11/7/2025
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Bad Bunny continues to expand his winning streak this year. On Friday (Nov. 7), the Puerto Rican superstar not only received six nominations for the 2026 Grammy Awards, but also made history as the first Latin artist to appear in three main categories in the same year: album of the year for Debí Tirar Más Fotos, and song of the year and record of the year for “DTMF.”
This is the second time Benito is competing for the album of the year award, having previously done so in 2023 with Un Verano Sin Ti. Additionally, “DTMF” is only the second Spanish-language track to be nominated for both record of the year and song of the year, following “Despacito” by Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee (featuring Justin Bieber). Bad Bunny is also nominated for best música urbana album, best global music performance for “EoO,” and best album cover as the art director for his LP’s artwork.
Also in the main categories, Mexican hitmaker Edgar Barrera received his third nomination for songwriter of the year, non-classical, this time for writing or cowriting hits for artists including Young Miko, Karol G, Carín León, Fuerza Regida, Grupo Frontera, Manuel Turizo, Shakira and Juanes. He is, once again, the only nominee for the award for writing songs in Spanish.
Other Latin artists are sprinkled throughout the categories. For the best global music performance award, in addition to Bad Bunny, Peruvian singer Ciro Hurtado is nominated for “Cantando en el Camino,” and Cuban artist Yeisy Rojas for “Inmigrante y Qué?” Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel and Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz are once again featured in the classical music categories, while the jazz and Latin jazz sections include Cuban musicians Paquito D’Rivera and Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Mexican Arturo O’Farrill and Puerto Rican Miguel Zenón.
In the Latin music categories — which include pop, urban music, rock or alternative music, Mexican music and tropical music — there are superstars who have been nominated or awarded in the past, such as Gloria Estefan, Fito Páez, Karol G, Rauw Alejandro, Natalia Lafourcade and Alejandro Sanz, among others. It also includes first-time nominees such as Colombian singer Paola Jara and Argentine duo CA7RIEL & Paco Amoroso.
Many of the artists who received nominations on Friday will first compete at the 2025 Latin Grammy Awards, which will be held Thursday (Nov. 13) in Las Vegas. At this ceremony, Bad Bunny leads with 12 nominations, followed by Edgar Barrera and CA7RIEL & Paco Amoroso, with 10 each.
Below are the nominees for the 68th Annual Grammy Awards in the Latin and Latin Jazz categories. The winners will be announced in Los Angeles on Sunday, Feb. 1, just a few days before the Super Bowl, where Bad Bunny will headline the halftime show.
Best Latin Pop Album
Cosa Nuestra, Rauw Alejandro
BOGOTÁ (DELUXE), Andrés Cepeda
Tropicoqueta, Karol G
Cancionera, Natalia Lafourcade
¿Y Ahora Qué?, Alejandro Sanz
Best Música Urbana Album
Debí Tirar Más Fotos, Bad Bunny
Mixteip, J Balvin
FERXXO VOL X: Sagrado, Feid
NAIKI, Nicki Nicole
EUB DELUXE, Trueno
SINFÓNICO (En Vivo), Yandel
Best Latin Rock or Alternative Album
Genes Rebeldes, Aterciopelados
ASTROPICAL, Bomba Estéreo, Rawayana, ASTROPICAL
PAPOTA, CA7RIEL & Paco Amoroso
ALGORHYTHM, Los Wizzards
Novela, Fito Paez
Best Música Mexicana Album (Including Tejano)
MALA MÍA, Fuerza Regida, Grupo Frontera
Y Lo Que Viene, Grupo Frontera
Sin Rodeos, Paola Jara
Palabra De To’s (Seca), Carín León
Bobby Pulido & Friends Una Tuya Y Una Mía – Por La Puerta Grande (En Vivo), Bobby Pulido
Best Tropical Latin Album
Fotografías, Rubén Blades, Roberto Delgado & Orquesta
Raíces, Gloria Estefan
Clásicos 1.0, Grupo Niche
Bingo, Alain Pérez
Debut y Segunda Tanda, Vol. 2, Gilberto Santa Rosa
Best Latin Jazz Album
La Fleur de Cayenne, Paquito D’Rivera & Madrid-New York Connection Band
The Original Influencers: Dizzy, Chano & Chico, Arturo O’Farrill & The Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra Featuring Pedrito Martinez, Daymé Arocena, Jon Faddis, Donald Harrison & Melvis Santa
Mundoagua – Celebrating Carla Bley, Arturo O’Farrill & The Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra
A Tribute to Benny Moré and Nat King Cole, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Yainer Horta & Joey Calveiro
Vanguardia Subterránea: Live at The Village Vanguard, Miguel Zenón Quartet
Trending on Billboard It’s another “Golden” week for KPop Demon Hunters as the breakout song reaches a whopping 10th week at No. 1 on the U.K. Official Singles Chart dated Nov. 7. The song, taken from the Netflix smash film, is credited to the animated group HUNTR/X and sung by EJAE, Audrey Nuna and Rei […]
