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      AKA, Influential South African Rapper, Is Fatally Shot

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      The rapper, whose legal name was Kiernan Forbes, was one of the most formidable songwriters in South African hip-hop. He and another man were killed outside a restaurant on Friday.AKA, a generation-defining South African rapper whose blend of local sounds with American hip-hop vaulted him into stardom, was fatally shot on Friday night outside a restaurant in the coastal city of Durban.The police said that AKA, 35, had been walking to his car on a popular nightlife strip shortly after 10 p.m. when two armed people approached from across the street and fired several shots at close range before running away.AKA, whose legal name was Kiernan Forbes, and another man died at the scene, the police said. Although the police did not name the second victim, South African news reports identified him as AKA’s close friend Tebello Motsoane, a 34-year-old chef and music entrepreneur known as Tibz.The police said on Saturday that they were still searching for the suspects.The killing drew an outpouring of grief from around the country, with fans, artists, major political parties and the government sending out messages of condolence. On Saturday, fans gathered outside the restaurant where he was killed, Wish on Florida, to pay their respects, with some blasting his music from their cars.“AKA was counted amongst the best rappers on the continent,” South Africa’s Department of Sport, Arts and Culture said in a statement. “AKA was one of the most patriotic artists who literally flew the South African flag high everywhere he went around the globe.”Born in Cape Town, AKA moved to Johannesburg as a child. He attended an elite private school, the sort of setting where hip-hop first became popularized in South Africa and elsewhere on the continent because affluent students had access to rap from its birthplace, the United States. In a 2014 article in the South African publication The Sunday Times, AKA described his parents as being “scared but excited” when he told them that he wanted to pursue a music career.He produced for several artists before his own big breakout in 2011 with his hit single “Victory Lap” on his debut album, “Altar Ego.”He went on to become known as one of the most formidable songwriters in South African hip-hop, noted Cedric Dladla, a music and culture journalist based in the country. AKA would take beats and samples from popular South African genres like amapiano and kwaito and incorporate them into his music, Mr. Dladla said. That helped influence a new generation of rappers, some of whom became rivals of AKA.“AKA was a person who was an advocate for the South African identity of music,” Mr. Dladla said. “That’s what made him stand out, no matter where he went.”Some of his songs were laden with references that only people in South Africa would understand, like his single “Lemons (Lemonade),” which made reference to a derogatory term used for foreigners and the practice of police officers asking for a “cold drink” when they want a bribe. But AKA also gained acclaim across Africa, collaborating with popular artists like Burna Boy, the Nigerian Afrobeats star.What also set AKA apart, Mr. Dladla said, was his performance style — an energetic and captivating aura, often with the backing of a band. He once performed with an orchestra.“That’s when the evolution from him being a rapper to him being a well-rounded musician started,” Mr. Dladla said.Whatever international acclaim he received, AKA seemed to embrace being a star who catered to Africa rather than the United States.“Why not be big in Africa?” he told The Sunday Times. “The States know what they want and consume it. There are lots of dollars on the continent.”Two years ago, AKA lost his fiancé, Anele Tembe, to tragic and controversial circumstances when she fell to her death from the 10th floor of a hotel in Cape Town. The two had a rocky relationship, according to news reports, including an altercation about a month before Ms. Tembe’s death when AKA was accused of breaking down a door at the couple’s Johannesburg apartment after Ms. Tembe locked herself inside a room. A friend of Ms. Tembe’s told News24, a South African online publication, that AKA had slammed his fiancée’s head against a wall, but AKA denied ever abusing her.AKA had been scheduled to perform at a nightclub on Friday night in Durban as part of an extended celebration of his birthday, which was late last month. Earlier in the day, he had posted videos on Instagram of himself dancing in a gym, getting his hair cut and eating a plate of seafood at the restaurant he visited before his death. He had also plugged his upcoming album, “Mass Country,” which is due to be released in about two weeks.“Our son was loved and he gave love in return,” his parents, Tony and Lynn Forbes, posted in a statement on his social media accounts.AKA is also survived by a young daughter he had with D.J. Zinhle, a popular South African D.J. In an Instagram post on his birthday last month, AKA had posted a picture of his daughter and a cake.“Thank God for another year on this earth,” he wrote. “Looking forward to seeing what he has in store for me in 2023.” More

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      Lil Uzi Vert Gave the Eagles the Soundtrack to Their Season

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      Eagles players ran out onto the field to the Philadelphia rapper’s “Just Wanna Rock,” and they regularly celebrate with the song’s viral dance.PHOENIX — Like all N.F.L. teams, the Eagles employ many exceptionally large men. But as they left their locker room ahead of the N.F.C. championship game against the San Francisco 49ers, they were led by a musician who stands just 5-foot-4.The artist, clad in a midnight-green No. 16 Eagles jersey and diamond chains, was the rapper Lil Uzi Vert, who ran out with the group as “Just Wanna Rock” blared through the stadium. Uzi’s song, which has a viral hip-shaking dance to go with it, has become the soundtrack for the Eagles’ season.“That song got the city and the world buzzing,” Eagles linebacker Kyzir White said. “That feel like our anthem right now.”Uzi, who uses they/they pronouns, said in a recent interview that the response to the track “was like a dream come true.”The rapper, a native of Philadelphia, noted that it was gratifying to discover their fan base is “actually bigger than what I think,” adding, “I didn’t think that they really listened to me.”Dive Deeper Into Super Bowl LVIIThe God of Sod: George Toma, 94, has been a groundskeeper for all 57 Super Bowls. On Sunday, his perfectionism will be on display for millions of people who will have no idea who he is or how he suffers for his work.Philadelphia Swagger: After surviving a disastrous introductory news conference, an ill-chosen flower analogy and his “Beat Dallas” motivational shirt, Nick Sirianni has transformed the Eagles, and maybe himself.Inside a Kansas City Oasis: Big Charlie’s Saloon is a South Philadelphia bar with a bit of a conundrum: how to celebrate Kansas City’s Super Bowl berth without drawing the ire of locals.Halftime Show: The nearly four-year gap between Rihanna’s live performances will close when she takes the stage at the Super Bowl. During her hiatus, the stakes for her return have only grown.The up-tempo “Just Wanna Rock,” inspired by Jersey club music, doesn’t feature many lyrics. But its dance exploded on TikTok, and has evolved to include different variations. At its core, dancers shake their hips and move their arms while looking at a camera with a stoic facial expression.When running back Miles Sanders scored the Eagles’ first touchdown in the N.F.C. championship game, he celebrated with the dance; he was joined by center Jason Kelce, who looked more like he was trying to shake an insect off his back. “They still got some learning to do,” Uzi said, laughing.“That was the first time releasing that,” Kelce said with a smile. “I just felt it in the moment.”The song plays regularly in the Eagles’ locker room, White said. Often at the center of the dance circle is defensive lineman Jordan Davis, who stands at an imposing 6-foot-6 and 335 pounds. His moves always surprise his teammates because of his size.“He wants to dance all day,” White said. “Weight room, locker room, it don’t matter, he always hitting that.”Even Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts, known for his love for old-school R&B tunes, has gotten behind “Just Wanna Rock.” When Uzi met Hurts in the locker room ahead of the N.F.C. championship game, the rapper remembers Hurts saying that the song was “crazy” — in a good way. Uzi said Hurts’s stamp of approval meant that much more because the song is so different from the player’s standard playlist. (After the Eagles ran out with Uzi before their game against the 49ers, Hurts’s favorite artist, Anita Baker, sang the national anthem.)Lil Uzi Vert performing last month in New York.Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images For SiriusXMDuring the Eagles’ 2017 Super Bowl-winning season, the team leaned on the song “Dreams and Nightmares” by the rapper Meek Mill. Eagles players danced and rapped the song word for word before blowing out the Vikings in the N.F.C. championship game. Players said that track is still in heavy rotation, and Mill performed it ahead of the Eagles’ game against the Cowboys in Week 6.“Dreams and Nightmares” has long been considered something of a city anthem, but the popularity of “Just Wanna Rock” has sparked a debate within the Eagles’ locker room.“I like the ‘Just Wanna Rock’ dance, but I like ‘Dreams and Nightmares’ more,” Eagles cornerback Darius Slay said. “I like both of ’em, but the new generation now moved from jumping around. Now they want to dance.”Uzi is hoping the Eagles can help the song lead to change in their city, which has dealt with a recent increase in violent crime. While the dancing is all for fun, Uzi suggested that perhaps people in Philadelphia watching popular Eagles players busting out moves will inspire them to seek positive outlets for their energy.“We from a rough area, and the only thing that gets praised is negative things, and this is a positive thing,” Uzi said, adding: “You would rather be in the house perfecting the dance and doing videos instead of going outside doing something that’s not positive. Why not just keep doing it to make sure that everyone’s safe?”The Eagles haven’t yet asked Uzi to run out with them on Sunday, the musician said. But the rapper will be at the game, and it’s almost certain that players will be shaking their hips in celebrations. More

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      Lil Yachty Breaks Boundaries and Takes on Rap Conservatism

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon MusicOver eight full-length releases since 2016, the Atlanta rap eccentric Lil Yachty has carved out several micro niches — he’s been a novelty rap auteur, a sing-rap warbler, a student and emulator of punchline-heavy Michigan rap.But his latest album, “Let’s Start Here.,” is stirring debate about how Lil Yachty is testing hip-hop boundaries, and why he feels compelled to test them at all. It’s an exploration of psychedelic rock with pop edges that finds Lil Yachty collaborating with indie-rock writers and producers, which is a sonic, if not dispositional, departure.On the new Popcast, a conversation about how young rappers often find themselves at odds with their elders, how Lil Yachty has leveraged casualness as he’s experimented with styles, and how collaborating outside the genre you made your name in can be fraught both musically and critically.Guests:Jayson Buford, who writes about music for Stereogum and othersJustin Charity, staff writer at The Ringer and a host of the Sound Only podcastConnect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at popcast@nytimes.com. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica. More

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      Lizzo and SZA Spin Up a Fresh ‘Special,’ and 7 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Luke Combs, Jessie Ware, Indigo de Souza and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new songs and videos. Just want the music? Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at theplaylist@nytimes.com and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage.Lizzo featuring SZA, ‘Special’Lizzo’s soulful, gospel-choir-backed performance of “Special,” the title track from her 2022 album, was a highlight of this year’s Grammys telecast, and now she’s recruited SZA to provide a fresh spin on the song. “You call it sensitive, and I call it superpower,” SZA sings, nimbly skipping across the beat, while Lizzo offers her a message of solidarity: “I thought that I’d let you know, in case nobody told you today, you’re special.” If the original version was a more general anthem of uplift, SZA’s presence gives the song a more intimate call-and-response quality, as if she and Lizzo were two girlfriends exchanging words of support after a long day. LINDSAY ZOLADZBeyoncé, ‘Cuff It (Wetter Remix)’It’s easy, and expected, to think about Beyoncé from the top down. On Sunday, she won four Grammys, giving her a career total of 32 and making her the most decorated performer in the show’s history. Conversations about her music, how she assembles it and how she releases it often take on a world-historical tone. She is the defining superstar of the stan era, publicly available only every once in a while.The Emotionally Charged Sound of SZAThe artist, whose real name is Solána Imani Rowe, has become a dominant figure in American pop.View From the Top: Her moody, enigmatic music made SZA a megastar. Can she learn to live with success?‘Ctrl’: The artist’s first album for a major label, released in 2017, held on to the electronics and the leisurely tempos of her past work. But it placed her fully in command of her songs.Interview: After receiving five Grammy nominations for “Ctrl,” the singer sat down to discuss her journey to success and facing her inner critic.‘SOS’: On her second album, SZA presents herself not as a heroine but as a work in progress who knows she’ll make more mistakes.But she is listening. One of the more gratifying and unexpected turns of the “Renaissance” era has been her acknowledgment of how fans listen to her, responding in something like real time. First, in August, she formally released a mash-up of “Break My Soul” and Madonna’s “Vogue” that had been floating around online.Now, she’s done it again. A few months ago, the D.J. and producer esentrik made a mash-up of “Cuff It” with “Wetter,” a temperate love rap from 2009 by the Chicago fast talker Twista, produced by the Legendary Traxter. It was a hit on TikTok, and now, it’s become something even more substantive. Beyoncé recorded new vocals for this version, which takes the sauciness of the original and cools it down slightly, leaning into afterglow.Making this remix official is savvy acknowledgment that fans listen to music in ways artists can’t anticipate, and it behooves artists to be mindful of how they’re being consumed. And it is savvy business too, a way of formalizing the chaos of TikTok and bringing it under the umbrella of the empire. JON CARAMANICAJessie Ware, ‘Pearls’Jessie Ware’s latest disco-inspired track is an effervescent invitation to, as she puts it, “shake it til the pearls fall off.” The single from her April album “That! Feels Good!” is thick with sumptuous atmosphere and Ware’s signature sass. But most impressively, its chorus’s ascending melody is a dazzling showcase of Ware’s stratospheric upper register. Sing along at your own risk. ZOLADZMegan Moroney, ‘I’m Not Pretty’A razor-sharp premise for a song: “Somewhere out there my ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend is scrolling through my Instagram/Tearing me down, passing the phone around.” A young country singer with a voice that mixes sweetness with wryness, Megan Moroney targets this charming, funny, exhausted song at women who tear other women down. CARAMANICALuke Combs, ‘Love You Anyway’In midcareer mode, Luke Combs doesn’t let it rip quite as often as he once did. His bellow is more stable, his emotional presence more dignified. But there’s still something of a purring engine inside songs like “Love You Anyway,” which in the hands of a lesser singer, would be a familiar, cloying ode to a love so strong, it’s worth the pain of potentially losing it. But when Combs sings, “If your kiss turned me to stone, I’d be a statue standing tall in ancient Rome,” he sounds like he’s thoroughly pondered the consequences — the likelihood of heartbreak — and is pressing on with force nonetheless. CARAMANICAIndigo de Souza, ‘Younger & Dumber’“Younger & Dumber,” from the Asheville singer-songwriter Indigo De Souza, is a slow-burning tear-jerker, a gradual accumulation of heartbreaking lines that takes flight in a soaring climax. “Sometimes I just don’t want to be alone, and it’s not because I’m lonely,” De Souza sings in a wearied croon. “It’s just that I get so tired of filling the space all around me.” But just then, her voice swells in intensity and fills that space with her own wrenching emotion. ZOLADZYaya Bey, ‘Exodus the North Star’Brooklyn’s Yaya Bey brings a light touch to “Exodus the North Star,” the title track from an upcoming EP that follows her excellent 2022 album “Remember Your North Star.” “Exodus” is a love-struck reverie that begins as a sparse arrangement — just Bey’s voice and some celestial keys — but soon explodes into a joyful, horn-kissed celebration. “Baby, it’s the way you make me feel like your girl could get up and fly,” Bey sings and, accordingly, the song suddenly takes flight. ZOLADZFrench Montana featuring 2Rare, “Ratataaaaa’Turns out that French Montana’s meandering smears, typically at home over lightly galloping production, sound equally intriguing over sounds twice as quick. This song (which perhaps is an allusion to an old TikTok meme) is jubilant and spacious, and a little odd. The Philadelphia club rapper 2Rare, who guests here, is more naturally bouncy than his host, but his antic energy is mostly a counterweight to French Montana’s impressionistic almost-raps. CARAMANICA More

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      Quality Control, Atlanta Rap Powerhouse, Sells to Scooter Braun’s Hybe

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      The acquisition is the famed music manager’s first major move at Hybe America — a division of the South Korean firm — since he became its sole chief executive last month.Quality Control Music, the Atlanta rap label that is one of the hottest hit machines in contemporary music, has been acquired by Hybe America, a company led by the executive and talent manager Scooter Braun, in one of the most closely watched deals in the music business.The acquisition is the first major step taken by Braun — who manages pop stars like Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande and Demi Lovato — since he became the sole chief executive of Hybe America last month. The company is a division of the South Korean entertainment firm Hybe, which dominates the K-pop world through its management of the superstar group BTS.The transaction was announced late Wednesday by Hybe America and QC Media Holdings, the label’s parent entity. The purchase price was not disclosed, but is estimated at around $300 million.“QC is one of the most significant independent labels in the world,” Braun said in a statement to The New York Times. “They not only distribute music, but they also distribute culture. Their artists are the voices of their communities.”The deal takes off the table one of the most coveted independent labels in music and expands the global repertoire of Hybe, which has only recently begun to look beyond the boundaries of K-pop.Since its founding in 2013, by Pierre Thomas (known as P) and Kevin Lee (Coach K), Quality Control has been behind the rise of rap acts like Migos, Lil Baby and Lil Yachty. Early on, the label mastered the promotion of music through streaming, adapting the fire-hose-of-content strategy that had long flourished in the world of semiofficial mixtapes.By early 2017, the label had scored a global smash with “Bad and Boujee,” featuring the idiosyncratic, stuttering flow of the trio Migos, with a guest appearance by the rapper Lil Uzi Vert. The song spent three weeks at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart. Lil Baby alone has garnered 37 billion streams of his catalog, according to Quality Control.Thomas and Lee will remain at the helm of the label, under the direction of Braun, they said.Braun became a power player in artist management after discovering a young Bieber on YouTube. In 2019, he came under the cross hairs of Taylor Swift fans when his entertainment company, Ithaca Holdings, bought her former label, Big Machine — including the rights to her first six studio albums — for more than $300 million, without Swift’s participation. Ithaca later sold Swift’s albums to another investor.In 2021, Braun joined Hybe after that company purchased Ithaca — which included Braun’s management deals, music publishing assets and the remainder of Big Machine — for just over $1 billion.“We want to take our brand worldwide and need partners with mind-sets like ours — ground up, self-made and building companies from nothing,” Thomas, Quality Control’s chief executive, said in a statement. “All of Hybe’s leaders are entrepreneurs with track records for finding, growing and amplifying their talent globally.”One question hanging over the deal is the future value of Migos, one of Quality Control’s biggest acts. One member, Takeoff, was killed in a shooting in November. A second, Offset, is suing Quality Control over ownership of his solo recordings. The third, Quavo, is managed by SB Projects, Braun’s company, which is part of Hybe America.Hybe’s deal for Quality Control is the latest in a string of transactions in which big music companies have scooped up smaller labels known for their close relationships with artists.In 2021, Warner Music Group paid $400 million for 300 Entertainment, which has released music by Megan Thee Stallion and Young Thug. That year, Sony Music also purchased a controlling stake in Alamo Records, whose acts include Lil Durk and Rod Wave; the value of that transaction was not disclosed, but is estimated at close to $200 million. More

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      Grammys 2023: Hip-Hop Wins, Beyoncé Wins (Sort of)

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon MusicThe major awards at this year’s Grammys were split: Harry Styles won album of the year, Lizzo took record of the year and Bonnie Raitt received song of the year. Beyoncé, nominated in each of those categories, won none of them.Which is to say another year, another set of Grammy shrugs for Beyoncé, who despite the ongoing snubs in major categories, is now the most awarded artist in Grammy history, with a total of 32 wins.Whether Grammy respect has meaning was an ongoing theme Sunday night, underscoring Beyoncé’s wins and losses, as well as the elaborate hip-hop history segment that ran through 50 years of the genre in 15 minutes, bringing many rap legends to the Grammy stage for the first time ever.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about the Grammys finally reckoning with hip-hop’s long legacy and impact, the show’s ongoing tug of war with Beyoncé and the ways it might remain relevant in the future.Guests:Joe Coscarelli, The New York Times’s pop music reporterJon Pareles, The New York Times’s chief pop music criticLindsay Zoladz, a pop music critic for The New York TimesConnect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at popcast@nytimes.com. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica. More

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      Best and Worst Moments From the 2023 Grammys

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      Questlove assembled a crash course in hip-hop history, Beyoncé made her priorities known and Kim Petras spoke from the heart at the 65th annual awards.The big news at the 65th annual Grammy Awards: Beyoncé broke the record for most wins in the event’s history. But her four victories didn’t come in the major, all-genre categories — album, record and song of the year. (Those went to Harry Styles, Lizzo and Bonnie Raitt.) Beyoncé, who led the night with nine nominations, did not perform; neither did Kendrick Lamar (eight nods) or Adele (seven). So how did the show fill nearly four hours of airtime? With some spectacular performances, bizarre fan moments and powerful speeches. Here are the show’s highlights and lowlights as we saw them.Best Opening Salvo: Bad BunnyBad Bunny earned his spot at the start of the telecast by making the commercial juggernaut of 2022: “Un Verano Sin Ti,” the year’s most streamed album and a Billboard No. 1 album for 13 nonconsecutive weeks. His performance — a medley of “El Apagón” (“The Blackout”), a tribute to Puerto Rican culture amid adversity, and “Después de la Playa” (“After the Beach”), a come-on — was a carnival and a dance party. Over Afro-Caribbean bomba drumming, Bad Bunny paraded through the Crypto.com Arena aisle with a troupe of dancers, some carrying oversized heads of Puerto Rican figures including the songwriters Andy Montañez and Tego Calderón. When he brought his forces onstage, “Después de la Playa” was transformed from electronic pop to a brassy, galloping merengue that left the celebrities upfront no choice but to dance. JON PARELESBest Acceptance: Kim Petras’s Moving Speech About Trans ExistenceIn her speech for best pop duo/group performance, Kim Petras thanked Sophie, a trans artist who died in 2021.Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for The Recording AcademyMadonna may have oversold Sam Smith and Kim Petras’s relatively tepid performance of “Unholy” when she promised it would provide “controversy.” But Petras’s moving speech when she and Smith won best pop duo/group performance was far more radical. Smith blew Petras a kiss and graciously ceded the microphone because, as Petras then told the audience in a quivering voice, she had just become the first transgender woman to win this category. She thanked the trans artists who paved the way for her, most poignantly Sophie, the wildly creative electronic producer and artist who died two years ago, at 34: “I adore you and your inspiration will forever be in my music.” Petras also thanked her mother, memorably: “I grew up next to a highway in nowhere, Germany,” she said, “and my mother believed me, that I was a girl, and I wouldn’t be here without her and her support.” LINDSAY ZOLADZBest History Lesson: The Hip-Hop 50 TributePerformers from across the rap universe united for a special segment celebrating the genre’s 50th anniversary.Valerie Macon/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesVarious chroniclers have agreed that 1973 was the dawn of hip-hop, making it a full 50 years old this year — old enough for the Grammys to finally treat it as a genre rather than an annoyance. That half-century point is also an occasion to start constructing a hip-hop canon. Given the constraints of time (12 minutes) and performer availability, Questlove produced a rough draft of a hip-hop chronology that was a cavalcade of dozens of performers onstage, most spitting a memorable line or verse, and a few — like a forthright Queen Latifah and a speed-tongued Busta Rhymes — getting more valuable seconds to show off. From Grandmaster Flash and Run-DMC to GloRilla and Lil Uzi Vert, it was a hip-hop Cliff’s Notes. (Jay-Z, who belongs in that canon, was reserved for a later appearance with DJ Khaled); it was a great way to start a discussion. And in 12 quick-changing minutes, the Grammys have probably multiplied their number of performing hip-hop acts. PARELESWorst Three-peat: Trevor NoahTrevor Noah had some groan-inducing moments as the Grammys host.Mario Anzuoni/ReutersFor a third consecutive year as Grammys host, Trevor Noah brought an arsenal of groan-worthy dad jokes. If his bits felt stale by the end of the first year, they were, dare we say, unholy the third time around. The Recording Academy needs to switch it up in 2024. Is Cardi B booked? Everyone in the audience seemed to know and like the Rock — why not give him a try? On the bright side, it can’t get much worse. ZOLADZBest Fashionably Late Entrance: Beyoncé Smiling and Nodding at Trevor NoahBeyoncé made it to the Grammys after her first televised win of the night, but in time to accept the honor that gave her the record for the show’s most victories ever.Chris Pizzello/Invision, via Associated PressWhen Noah delivered his cheesy opening remarks, joking about the stars in the room, Beyoncé was nowhere to be found (much to Lizzo’s consternation). Some time later, when Beyoncé won best R&B song, her third of four awards on the night — and first on the televised prime-time show — she still wasn’t in her seat. (The-Dream, one of her fellow writers, spent a few seconds onstage instead.) And when Noah, after blaming Los Angeles traffic, eventually did find Beyoncé at her table, bringing her the trophy she had won, the singer just nodded politely, giving him — and the show that would go on to both celebrate and disrespect her, again — basically nothing. By the time she did step to the microphone for a proper acceptance speech, having taken the all-time Grammy record and also opted not to perform, Beyoncé had made her priorities clear: She posted to Instagram about her Grammy wins before actually showing her face at the Grammys. JOE COSCARELLIMore Coverage of the 2023 GrammysQuestlove’s Hip-Hop Tribute: The Roots drummer and D.J. fit 50 years of rap history into 15 minutes. For once, the awards show gave the genre a fitting spotlight.Welcoming Rebels: The Grammys need to build bridges between generations. That means convincing once-overlooked upstarts to show up as elders, Jon Caramanica writes.Viola Davis’s EGOT: The actress achieved the rare distinction during the Grammys preshow, becoming the 18th person to have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony.Protest Song: Shervin Hajipour’s “Baraye,” which has become the anthem of the protests in Iran, won in a new special merit category recognizing a song for social change.Worst Participation Trophy: The Useless Fan SegmentsSuperfans of the artists nominated for album of the year shared personal stories about their relationship with their idols’ music.CBS/Paramount+Stan service gone wild was on full display during the misleading — and often humiliating — interstitial segments that showed (alleged) superfans of the 10 artists nominated for album of the year spouting P.R. talking points about their faves around a table and in the audience. If the Grammys has an optics problem, it’s that the public does not fully comprehend just who from the industry’s back rooms tends to vote for these peculiar winners, year after year. So acting like an everyday listener’s opinions about Harry Styles’s good looks, Lizzo’s body positivity or Bad Bunny’s domination on streaming services had anything to do with who was going to take home the prize was not only pointless propaganda, it actually hurt the Recording Academy’s cause by further fuzzying how the system works. Hopefully those people got paid. COSCARELLIBest Tribute That Should Never Have Been Necessary: Quavo Remembering TakeoffQuavo paid tribute to his Migos group mate and nephew, Takeoff.Kevin Winter/Getty Images for The Recording AcademyThe annual in memoriam segment is never short on tear-jerking moments, given the bonds that fans — and fellow musicians — have with their favorite artists. But seeing Quavo perform “Without You,” a tribute to his nephew and Migos group mate Takeoff, who was killed as an innocent bystander to a shooting in November, was almost too much. Seated at first, wearing a “Phantom of the Opera” mask, in the shadow of a microphone stand holding Takeoff’s glistening rocket chain, Quavo eventually stood up, hoisting the necklace skyward. Seeing him up there alone — even backed by the power of the Maverick City Music collective — only drove home how little we’ve seen the two rappers apart, ever. It will take some getting used to. COSCARELLIBest Beyoncé Appreciation: LizzoLizzo made her feelings about Beyoncé known during her acceptance speech for record of the year.Chris Pizzello/Invision, via Associated PressIn 2017, when Adele’s “25” triumphed over Beyoncé’s “Lemonade” for album of the year, the British musician announced, “I can’t possibly accept this award,” because the “artist of my life is Beyoncé.” The moment was both uncomfortably sincere and charged with larger tensions, namely the Grammys’ dire history of overlooking Black excellence in the major categories. It wasn’t quite Macklemore-apologizing-to-Kendrick awkward, but it was awkward nonetheless. Since then, beating Beyoncé has become a minefield. Lizzo managed to traverse it with elegance and flair, though, when her uplifting “About Damn Time” won record of the year. In a speech full of joy and grace, she thanked Beyoncé while also celebrating herself and enjoying her moment. Through tears, Lizzo recalled skipping school in 5th grade to see a Beyoncé concert, addressing her idol directly: “The way you made me feel, I was like, I wanna make people feel this way with my music.” But — whether inadvertently or winkingly — she did end up paraphrasing Adele, saying to Beyoncé what now seem to be the magic words: “You clearly are the artist of our lives.” ZOLADZBest Agenda Transcendence: Stevie WonderStevie Wonder performed three songs during the prime-time Grammy ceremony.Chris Pizzello/Invision, via Associated PressAny performance by Stevie Wonder is an occasion, even one that’s overloaded with guests and agendas. Berry Gordy, Motown’s founder, and Smokey Robinson, the songwriter and longtime Motown executive, were the persons of the year at the Grammys’ MusiCares gala this year. So with Grammy logic, Wonder’s segment became a Motown tribute — the first one since all the way back in, well, 2019. Add a dynastic element; Wonder’s first guest, WanMor, is a boy band formed by the sons of Wanya Morris of Boyz II Men. They shared a Temptations hit co-written by Robinson, “The Way You Do the Things You Do.” Robinson himself joined Wonder for a song they wrote together (along with Hank Cosby), “The Tears of a Clown”; then Wonder performed his own “Higher Ground” with the country hitmaker Chris Stapleton, and the music finally took off. Stapleton brought a blues-rock earthiness to his vocal and guitar lines, and Wonder tossed a synthesizer counterpoint at him that made him grin and dig in harder — a real jam. PARELESBest Graceful Shocked Reaction: Bonnie RaittBonnie Raitt told the story of her Grammy-winning track “Just Like That” as she accepted her award for song of the year.Mario Anzuoni/ReutersIt’s no wonder that Bonnie Raitt, who had just joined a memorial for Christine McVie singing “Songbird,” was surprised when the Grammys chose “Just Like That” as song of the year. She is one of the mature singers and songwriters who have been relegated to formats like “Americana” and “Legacy.” But Raitt had learned from the best — notably John Prine — how to tell a sad but uplifting story with a voice and a small band. Some proportion of Grammy voters — enough to lift her into a plurality above Beyoncé and Adele — obviously recognized the combination of passion and terse craftsmanship. PARELESWorst Face-Saving Maneuvers: Televised CategoriesBad Bunny won best música urbana album, an award that is not usually televised on the main Grammys show. Mario Anzuoni/ReutersLike a nervous baseball manager, the Grammys have lately been re-examining their stats — particularly for representation of minorities, women and marginalized groups, who happen to be the loci of innovation in music. It may have seemed odd that some categories usually relegated to the Grammy Premiere Ceremony — where the vast majority of awards are presented as a webcast but not as a prime-time telecast — had arrived on the main Grammy stage. But look what they were. One was música urbana album, way down at Category 43; it gave a prime-time award, finally, to Bad Bunny. (But the main telecast should have had English subtitles when he switched to his more comfortable Spanish.) And the dance/electronic music album category? Congratulations to Beyoncé for breaking the Grammy record for most awards. But in the top categories, where she has belonged for multiple releases, she still hasn’t gotten her due. PARELESWorst Instance of Gravity Holding Him Back: Harry StylesHarry Styles was a big winner at the podium, but gave a lackluster performance on the Grammys stage.Valerie Macon/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe usually preternaturally spunky Styles was curiously low energy throughout his performance of “As It Was” Sunday night, hardly selling himself as the sort of entertainer who sells out 15 nights at Madison Square Garden. Several singers seemed to be having issues with their in-ear monitors, and Styles visibly adjusted his a few times, but that still doesn’t explain the curious sluggishness of his time onstage. It certainly didn’t help justify his album of the year win to the skeptics, either. ZOLADZ More

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      How the Grammys Bring Rebels Into the Fold

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      The awards show needs to build bridges between generations. That means convincing once-overlooked upstarts to show up as elders.Around midway through the 65th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday night, Madonna came out to introduce a performance by Sam Smith and Kim Petras of their theatrically gothic collaboration, “Unholy.”The track, a robust and cheeky song about infidelity with a playfully erotic video, went to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in October, making Smith and Petras the first nonbinary and transgender artist, respectively, to top the chart. (On Sunday, “Unholy” also won best pop duo/group performance.)“Here’s what I’ve learned after four decades in music,” Madonna said dryly, riding crop in hand. “If they call you shocking, scandalous, troublesome, problematic, provocative or dangerous, you are definitely onto something.”Madonna would know, of course — the first decade of her career, she was aggressively, provocatively and campily pushing the boundaries of pop feminism, religion and sexuality, becoming one of the signature superstars of the 1980s. The Grammys, naturally, all but ignored her. She didn’t win a trophy for one of her studio albums until “Ray of Light,” in 1999. To this day, she has never claimed a Grammy in one of the major categories.Sam Smith performed “Unholy” after an introduction from Madonna in which she discussed the joys of provocation.Mario Anzuoni/ReutersAnd yet here she was, a revered and often-imitated elder, now fully absorbed into the Grammys ritual of baton passing between icons old and new.The Grammys, more than any of the other major award shows, needs these sorts of intergenerational handoffs to survive. Often it fudges them, by emphasizing and over-celebrating younger artists, like Bruno Mars and H.E.R., who make deeply traditional music.More Coverage of the 2023 GrammysQuestlove’s Hip-Hop Tribute: The Roots drummer and D.J. fit 50 years of rap history into 15 minutes. For once, the awards show gave the genre a fitting spotlight.Welcoming Rebels: The Grammys need to build bridges between generations. That means convincing once-overlooked upstarts to show up as elders, Jon Caramanica writes.Viola Davis’s EGOT: The actress achieved the rare distinction during the Grammys preshow, becoming the 18th person to have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony.Protest Song: Shervin Hajipour’s “Baraye,” which has become the anthem of the protests in Iran, won in a new special merit category recognizing a song for social change.But the story of pop music is far more often about the mainlining and then mainstreaming of frisky outsider ideas into broad palatability. Innovators and interlopers become the establishment. Those who emerged pushing back fiercely against their elders eventually become elders.For the Grammys to last for decades to come — if it even should, but that’s a debate for a different time — it needs to turn rebels into institutionalists.Nowhere was this more clear Sunday night than in the elaborate and rousing hip-hop history revue that anchored the broadcast — a performance that underscored the Grammys’ often-tortured relationship to newness and rebellion, to say nothing of pop music rebels’ often-tortured relationship to the Grammys.Start at the end, when Lil Uzi Vert stomped out onstage, his hair jelled into spikes, rapping his bizarro viral hit “Just Wanna Rock.” This is how hip-hop works now — an idiosyncratic stylist finds fervor online and builds a cult atop it, a mechanism that couldn’t be further from the Grammys stage.Lil Uzi Vert represented rap’s current generation, performing “Just Wanna Rock.”Kevin Winter/Getty Images For The Recording AAnd yet here he was, anchoring a 12-minute feat of logistics and favor-pulling (orchestrated by Questlove) featuring several titans who had previously never touched the Grammy stage. Rakim, never nominated for a Grammy, with a morsel of “Eric B. Is President.” Too Short, never nominated for a Grammy, plowing through “Blow the Whistle.” The Lox, only nominated for featuring on a Kanye West album, performed “We Gonna Make It,” a song reliably certain to ignite a Hot 97 Summer Jam in New York but not usually the purview of an industry gala.Like all historical surveys, it was both impressively broad and woefully incomplete. Jay-Z was in the audience, not onstage. Drake and West didn’t attend (likely for very different reasons). Lil Wayne and Nicki Minaj were M.I.A. The lineup also brought to mind boatloads of other legends who could have taken a star turn — Cam’ron, Lil’ Kim, UGK, KRS-One, E-40, Master P, Big Daddy Kane — to say nothing of the countless rappers who died before seeing the genre reach its 50th birthday.Mostly it underscored the uncharitable ways in which hip-hop has been handled by the Grammys, and the long-running resistance of hip-hop’s biggest stars to the show’s butter-finger approach to handling them. At the 1989 Grammys, the first to honor hip-hop with an award, several of the nominated artists boycotted because the category was not being televised. But some of those original boycotters, Salt-N-Pepa and DJ Jazzy Jeff, appeared during this Sunday’s performance, more evidence of time healing all wounds.In recent years, the Grammys have ever so slightly sped up their relationship to pop music’s evolution. Opening the show this year was Bad Bunny, the Puerto Rican rapper-singer whose 2022 release “Un Verano Sin Ti” was last year’s most streamed LP. It was also nominated for album of the year, the first Spanish-language album so honored. The memorial segment included a tribute for Takeoff, the Migos rapper, from his group mate Quavo, a saddening indicator of the Grammys’ growing acceptance of hip-hop. And in her acceptance speech for record of the year, Lizzo framed her unabashedly positive and joyful music as an act of rebellion that paid off.And then there is the matter of Beyoncé, now the most decorated artist in Grammy history while still feeling like something of an outsider. Claiming that record didn’t quite overshadow her losses in the three major categories she was nominated in — to Bonnie Raitt (nice), Lizzo (sure, OK) and Harry Styles (errrr … great rings, beautiful rings).Beyoncé took the Grammys stage once, to accept the award for best dance/electronic music album, which gave her the record for most Grammy wins ever.Kevin Winter/Getty ImagesBeyoncé is a shadow traditionalist, but her short-straw-drawing at the Grammys has fashioned for her something of an outsider lore. She did not perform at this year’s event, and hasn’t for some time, a choice that feels pointed. It’s possible to be the most awarded artist in Grammys history, and still be an anti-Grammys rebel.This goes for her husband as well. Jay-Z boycotted the Grammys in 1999, but has shown up from time to time in the years since, largely to support his wife. He’s won 24 Grammys to Beyoncé’s 32.He was nominated five times this year, but more important, he was the key element in the show-closing performance of “God Did,” a signature DJ Khaled-orchestrated posse cut. What’s notable about this song isn’t that it was a hit — it was not — but that it features a dramatically long, boast-filled, conversation-starting Jay-Z verse.Jay-Z rapped the whole thing, all four minutes of it, seated at the center of a Last Supper-style table, flanked on either side by his longtime business associates Emory Jones and Juan Perez. He looked relaxed, unbothered, rapping like a benevolent uncle from whom you’re lucky to hear old war stories.For someone who’s been vocally skeptical about the Grammys over many years, Jay-Z ended the show wholly on his terms, like the final move in a decades-long chess game. An agitator finally ceded the throne.Whether he — or Beyoncé — will ever deign to sit in it again remains to be seen. More