Grammy Awards 2016: Nominees Announced With Kendrick Lamar on the Lead

“This all comes from artists today who are emboldened, who are fearless and who are not willing, or wanting to be, sort of put in a nice little box with a bow on it”, Recording Academy President Neil Portnow told The Times.

There are plenty of other places to nitpick, too, but if we accept the Grammys for what they’ve become – a celebration of popular music – it’s hard to either hold them to a critical standard, or to be all that incensed over their choices.

The British beauty already has 10 Grammy awards sitting at home after having scooped the gongs in every category she was nominated for in 2012, 2013 and 2014.

Song nominees run from Lamar’s “Alright”, which touches on police brutality, to Swift’s tongue-in-cheek celebration of romantic fickleness, “Blank Space”. We also have Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright”, Little Big Town’s “Girl Crush” and Wiz Khalifa featuring Charlie Puth’s “See You Again”.

Best New Artiste contenders are Meghan Trainor, Tori Kelly, James Bay, Sam Hunt and Courtney Barnett.

Following the path of the 28-year-old rapper, who won two Grammys in 2015, are Taylor Swift and The Weeknd, who each earned seven nominations, including album of the year, reports E!

Neither seems likely to actually win the thing come February – but then, neither did Beck before he took album of the year at the last Grammy Awards with his rootsy Morning Phase.

“Can’t Feel My Face” – The Weeknd. His debut album, “Montevallo”, quickly went on to become a fan favorite with the upbeat drinking track, “House Party” and the sing-along, “Leave the Night On”.

The 2016 Grammy nominations were publicized on December 7, and three of the four acts on the countdown made the list. But Stapleton says he didn’t celebrate after the nomination – he’s too busy shooting a new video for his album (he wouldn’t reveal which song it was for).

As we peruse the R&B and Rap categories, here are the people that we feel should’ve been nominated-but weren’t.

How many different opinions are there on Kendrick Lamar’s nomination? The next time a hip-hop artist won was in 2004, when Album of the Year went to Outkast’s Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, a double album that also benefited from a “rap-but-not-really” vibe thanks to the massive success of “Hey Ya!”, which won a Grammy in the category of “Best Urban/Alternative Performance” (a.k.a. “Best Euphemism Coined By A Confused Elderly White Person”). He’s also nominated in the best rap performance category for his part in the Nicki Minaj song “Truffle Butter”, which also features Lil Wayne, and in the best rap/sung collaboration category for the Minaj song “Only”, along with Lil Wayne and Chris Brown.

NEW YORK (AP) — The red carpet just keeps rolling out for singer-songwriter Chris Stapleton: After dominating at last month’s Country Music Association Awards and watching his album jump from nowhere to No. 1, he’s now a top nominee at the 2016 Grammy Awards. He’s now running in five categories – but fellow rapper Kendrick Lamar leads the field of all Grammy nominees with 11.

Winners will be determined by about 13,000 voting members of the Recording Academy.

Ludwig garnered two Grammy nominations Monday.