LOS ANGELES: Rapper Jay Z is in the Grammy lead this year with nine nominations, but newcomers Lorde, Kendrick Lamar, and Macklemore and Ryan Lewis edged out industry heavyweights for nods in the top categories of the annual music awards.
Jay Z picked up nominations in categories across pop and rap, including Best Pop Duo Performance for Suit & Tie with Justin Timberlake, and Best Rap Album for his July release Magna Carta…Holy Grail.
The 44-year-old Brooklyn-born rapper failed to land solo nods in the top Grammy categories for Record, Song, and Album of the year, scoring only one as a producer on Lamar’s Good Kid, M.A.A.D City record, nominated in the Album of the Year category.
Lamar’s album will face off against Sara Bareilles’ The Blessed Unrest, French electro-dance duo Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories, Taylor Swift’s Red and Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’ The Heist for Album of the Year.
Seattle based rapper-producer duo Macklemore & Ryan Lewis capped their stellar crossover over the past year from the independent music scene into mainstream pop with seven nominations, including Song of the Year for Same Love featuring Mary Lambert, and the coveted Best New Artist category.
“It feels very, very, very surreal. I don’t think it’s ever going to feel normal…. It’s something that we never ever thought was possible when we were making this album,” Macklemore, whose real name is Ben Haggerty, said backstage.
The duo will be facing off against Lamar, country music singer Kasey Musgraves and British singers James Blake and Ed Sheeran for the Best New Artist accolade, which has been won by Adele and FUN in recent years.
California rapper Lamar, 26, also picked up five nominations in the R&B and Rap categories. Singer-producer Pharrell scored seven nods, including Album, Record and Song of the year for his work as a featured artist on Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories and Robin Thicke’s Blurred Lines.
The Grammy Awards are the music industry’s top accolades and are voted on by members of the Recording Academy for more than 80 categories spanning all genres. To be eligible for nominations this year, artists had to release their music between October 1, 2012, and September 30, 2013.
The nominations for the top awards and main categories were announced during an hour-long televised concert held in Los Angeles on Friday. The winners will be announced on January 26 at a live televised ceremony in Los Angeles.
The record of the year category features five songs that achieved commercial and chart success this year.
Get Lucky-Daft Punk
Radioactive – Imagine Dragons
Royals – Lorde
Locked Out of Heaven - Bruno Mars
Blurred Lines – Robin Thicke, featuring T.I. and Pharrell
Published in The Express Tribune, December 9th, 2013.
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