Image credit: Grammy Awards

The awards is currently in progress, but that doesn’t mean we can’t begin recapping the highlights of the evening. Check them out as they come in below. UPDATE: You can check out all of the winners here.

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Image credit; Grammy Awards

On January 28th of next year, the highly-coveted GRAMMY Awards will be coming to New York City — it’s the first time there in almost 15 years. This week, we now know who will be vying for the many categories available.

First off, Hip-Hop deserves an applause — Jay-Z leads his peers with eight nods (including Album and Record of the Year) while Kendrick Lamar follows behind with seven (including the same two aforementioned). Bruno Mars (6), SZA (5) and Childish Gambino (5) add to the leaders’ list as well; meanwhile, Rapsody, Cardi B (!), Migos, GoldLink and more also have reason to celebrate. Another interesting statistic: the album categories are completely non-white male for the first time in two decades.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the artists that strangely got passed over: usual Pop frontrunners like Lady Gaga and Katy Perry are in the dark, as well as a should’ve been nominated Ed Sheeran. Even Future and The Weeknd couldn’t get a single look, which is…surprising.

Anyways, you can view the list in full over at the GRAMMYs official website.

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The post Here are Your 2018 GRAMMY Nominees appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.

Album of the Year

Kendrick Lamar – To Pimp A Butterfly
Taylor Swift – 1989 — Winner!
The Weeknd – Beauty Behind the Madness
Chris Stapleton – Traveller
Alabama Shakes – Sound & Color

Record of the Year

Mark Ronson Featuring Bruno Mars — “Uptown Funk”
Ed Sheeran — “Thinking Out Loud”
Taylor Swift – “Blank Space”
The Weeknd – “Can’t Feel My Face”
D’Angelo – “Really Love”

Song of the Year

Kendrick Lamar – “Alright”
Taylor Swift – “Blank Space”
Little Big Town – “Girl Crush”
Wiz Khalifa Featuring Charlie Puth — “See You Again”
Ed Sheeran — “Thinking Out Loud” — Winner!

Best Pop Solo Performance

Kelly Clarkson — “Heartbeat Song”
Ellie Goulding — “Love Me Like You Do”
Ed Sheeran — “Thinking Out Loud” — Winner!
Taylor Swift — “Blank Space”
The Weeknd — “Can’t Feel My Face”

Best Pop Duo/Group Performance

Florence + The Machine — “Ship To Wreck”
Maroon 5 — “Sugar”
Mark Ronson Featuring Bruno Mars — “Uptown Funk” — Winner!
Taylor Swift Featuring Kendrick Lamar — “Bad Blood”
Wiz Khalifa Featuring Charlie Puth — “See You Again”

Best Pop Vocal Album

Kelly Clarkson — Piece
Florence + The Machine — How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful
Mark Ronson — Uptown Special
Taylor Swift — 1989 — Winner!
James Taylor — Before This World

Best Dance Recording

Above & Beyond Featuring Zoë Johnston — “We’re All We Need”
The Chemical Brothers — “Go”
Flying Lotus Featuring Kendrick Lamar — “Never Catch Me”
Gallants — “Runaway (U & I)”
Skrillex And Diplo With Justin Bieber — “Where Are Ü Now” — Winner!

Best R&B Album

Leon Bridges — Coming Home
D’Angelo And The Vanguard — Black Messiah — Winner!
Andra Day — Cheers to the Fall
Jazmine Sullivan — Reality Show
Charlie Wilson — Forever Charlie

Best R&B Performance

Tamar Braxton — “If I Don’t Have You”
Andra Day — “Rise Up”
Hiatus Kaiyote — “Breathing Underwater”
Jeremih Featuring J. Cole — “Planes”
The Weeknd — “Earned It (Fifty Shades Of Grey)” — Winner!

Best R&B Song

Miguel — “Coffee”
The Weeknd — “Earned It”
Jazmine Sullivan — “Let It Burn”
D’Angelo — “Really Love” — Winner!
Tyrese — “Shame”

Best Urban Contemporary Album

The Internet — Ego Death
Kehlani — You Should Be Here
Lianne La Havas — Blood
Miguel — Wildheart
The Weeknd — Beauty Behind The Madness — Winner!

Best Traditional R&B Performance

Lalah Hathaway – “Little Ghetto Boy” — Winner!

Best Rap Album

J. Cole — 2014 Forest Hills Drive
Dr. Dre — Compton
Drake — If Youre Reading This Its Too Late
Kendrick Lamar — To Pimp A Butterfly – Winner!
Nicki Minaj — The Pinkprint

Best Rap Performance

J. Cole – “Apparently”
Drake – “Back to Back”
Fetty Wap – “Trap Queen”
Kendrick Lamar – “Alright” — Winner!
Nicki Minaj Featuring Drake & Lil Wayne – “Truffle Butter”
Kanye West Featuring Theophilus London, Allan Kingdom & Paul McCartney – “All Day”

Best Rap/Sung Collaboration

Big Sean Featuring Kanye West & John Legend — “One Man Can Change The World”
Common & John Legend — “Glory”
Jidenna Featuring Roman GianArthur — “Classic Man”
Kendrick Lamar Featuring Bilal, Anna Wise & Thundercat – “These Walls” — Winner!
Nicki Minaj Featuring Drake, Lil Wayne & Chris Brown — “Only”

Best Rap Song

Kanye West – “All Day”
Kendrick Lamar – “Alright” — Winner!
Drake – “Energy”
Common & John Legend – “Glory”
Fetty Wap – “Trap Queen”

Best Gospel Album

Karen Clark Sheard — Destined To Win (Live)
Dorinda Clark-Cole — Living It
Tasha Cobbs — One Place Live
Israel & Newbreed — Covered: Alive Is Asia [Live] (Deluxe) — Winner!
Jonathan McReynolds — Life Music: Stage Two

Producer Of The Year, Non-Classical

Jeff Bhaskar — Winner!
Dave Cobb
Diplo
Larry Klein
Blake Mills

Best Music Film

James Brown — Mr. Dynamite: The Rise Of James Brown
Foo Fighters — Sonic Highways
Nina Simone — What Happened, Miss Simone?
Roger Water — The Wall
Amy Winehouse – Amy — Winner!

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Last night, the 2016 Grammy Awards aired on CBS and it was full of tributes, sound glitches and a performance that will go down in music history. Here’s our take on the most memorable moments of the night.

• Kendrick Lamar put Compton in Africa. It’s not really that surprising that Kendrick Lamar, who was nominated for 11 Grammys and took home five (sweeping the Rap categories), had the most electric performance of the night. He’s consistently delivered every time he’s shown up on live television this year, and the Grammys was obviously his biggest live TV stage to date—his performance was supposed to be breathtaking. And it was.

The musicality and conceptualism of To Pimp a Butterfly lends itself to high-energy, artistic performances, and with each showing, it becomes more obvious that his live appearances were always planned to be part of a package deal—album, video, live performance. It’s hard to describe K.Dot’s TV appearances over the past year as anything but high-quality performance art, and that’s exactly what his showing on music’s so-called “biggest night” was. It was electrifying, daring and dripping with creativity and consciousness.

When, after being introduced by a solemn Don Cheadle, he emerged on stage in prison clothes, leading a chain gang of black men to start his set, host LL Cool J‘s claims that his performance would instantly trend on social media were validated. Kendrick was fully committed the entire time, his face twisted in agony when speaking of the ills of being young and black in America on “The Blacker The Berry” before switching to intense and fiery as African dancers swarmed him as he spoke defiantly of withstanding both spiritual and societal temptations on the protest anthem, “Alright”.

By the time Kendrick ended with a never-before heard song, standing strong, illuminated by a crisp black and white backdrop that showed his hometown, Compton inside of Africa, it was clear that we’d witnessed not only the best performance of the night, but history.

• The tributes were never-ending. What is up with 2016 and the loss of musical icons? To that end, could the tribute to Earth, Wind & Fire’s Maurice White, who passed away earlier this month at 74, have been longer? Absolutely. Still, Stevie Wonder delivered an obviously heartfelt rendition of the 1975 classic, “That’s the Way of the World” with the help of a cappella group, Pentatonix. It would’ve been great to see EWF receive a bit more shine, but they did receive a Lifetime Achievement Award and the group also presented Record of the Year, so… yay, Grammys?

Lady Gaga‘s tribute to David Bowie did well in paying homage to the innovative star, particularly because her own career trajectory has some obvious parallels. While it seemed as though maybe too many songs were stuffed into her medley, you got the sense that this was purposely done— one, to showcase Bowie’s ever-evolving style, and two, to introduce him to younger audiences who may’ve only been vaguely familiar with his influence. Bowie’s friend and frequent collaborator, Nile Rodgers joined Gaga on stage, playing guitar, as did Raphael Saadiq on bass, though he strangely didn’t receive an introduction. Why, exactly, is that?

• Alabama Shakes probably sold some more records, and won some more black fans in the process. While the Shakes won four awards last night, Brittany Howard made a fan out of the uninitiated with her performance of “Don’t Wanna Fight” from their stellar sophomore album, Sound & Color, which was appropriately nominated for Album of the Year (they lost to Taylor Swift’s 1989). “Gimme All Your Love” probably would’ve earned even more fans, as it more readily showcases Howard’s powerful pipes with its slow-rolling groove. But then, draped in Al Green-white, strumming the hell out of an aqua-colored guitar, while channeling Sister Rosetta Tharpe was a solid way to make an impression too.

• The acceptance speeches were highly entertaining. Yes, everyone is talking about Taylor Swift’s speech, which was 30 percent girl power, 20 percent after school special and 50 percent clap back at Kanye West. Yes, the Taylor Swift-Kanye West saga continues… almost a decade later. Taylor wins this round, since, as she so eloquently pointed out in her speech, she just became the first woman to win Album of Year, twice. “I want to say to all the young women out there: There are going to be people along the way who will try to undercut your success or take credit for your accomplishments or your fame, but if you just focus on the work and you don’t let those people sidetrack you, someday when you get where you’re going, you’ll look around and you will know that it was you and the people who love you who put you there. And that will be the greatest feeling in the world.” Yeah! Uh, take that, Pablo.

• Adele’s sound hits a glitch and the entire performance falls flat. Yes, the sound was messed up at the beginning of her performance but that, honestly, had nothing to do with her vocal struggle to climb the mountaintop, as she belted out “All I Ask.” She later went on Twitter to explain exactly what had happened: “The piano mics fell on to the piano strings, that’s what the guitar sound was. It made it sound out of tune. S— happens. X.” No worries. Next year, after 25 is eligible, she’ll own The Grammys.

The post #RECAP 2016 Grammy Awards Hot Topic Moments appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.

Best Rap/Sung Collaboration

“Black Magic”-Common featuring Jhene Aiko

“Monster”- Eminem featuring Rihanna 

“Tuesday”-ILOVEMAKONNEN featuring Drake

“Studio” ScHoolboy Q featuring BJ The Chicago Kid

“Bound 2” Kanye West featuring Charlie Wilson

Best Rap Album
The New Classic- Iggy Azalea
…Because The Internet– Childish Gambino
Nobody Smiling– Common
The Marshall Mathers LP 2– Eminem
Oxymoron– Schoolboy Q
Blacc Hollywood– Wiz Khalifa

Best Rap Song
“Anaconda”- Nicki Minaj
“Bound 2″- Kanye West
“i”- Kendrick Lamar
“We Dem Boyz”- Wiz Khalifa
“0 to 100/The Catch Up”- Drake

Best Rap Performance
“3005”- Childish Gambino
“0 to 100/The Catch Up”- Drake
“Rap God”- Eminem
“i”- Kendrick Lamar
“All I Need Is You – Lecrae

Best Urban Contemporary Album
Sail Out– Jhené Aiko
Beyoncé – Beyoncé
X – Chris Brown
Mali Is…- Mali Music
Girl — Pharrell Williams

Best R&B Performance
“Drunk In Love” — Beyonce featuring. Jay Z
“New Flame” — Chris Brown featuring Usher and Rick Ross
“It’s Your World” — Jennifer Hudson featuring R.Kelly
“Like This” — Ledisi
“Good Kisser” — Usher

Well there you have it. Comment below with your thoughts

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SK Da Hitman provides the instrumental, keeping the elements light but engaging. Fluttering keys and pounding bass drive the beat, but they’re not overbearing, allowing RiFF and Bronson‘s flashy weirdness to shine through without any impediments. It’s also worth mentioning that is probably one of RiFF RAFF‘s most polished choruses. Like he told us in our interview with him last year, he’s no longer taking any chances. This is possibly his only shot, so he has to be in top form. Listen to the track and RiFF and Bronson‘s previous collaborations below.

The post New Music: RiFF RAFF feat. Action Bronson – “i Shoulda Won A Grammy” (prod. SK Da Hitman) appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.

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