At the 68th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday, Kendrick Lamar, the top nominee, will compete against Billie Eilish, Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, Sabrina Carpenter and Tyler, the Creator for the most prestigious awards. Chappell Roan, Rosé and Bruno Mars, too.
Plenty of stars are set to perform, like Lady Gaga, Bieber and Carpenter, along with the K-pop singer Rosé; the veteran rap duo Clipse with their longtime producer Pharrell Williams; and a segment featuring all eight nominees for best new artist.
But in the music business and beyond, all eyes will be on Bad Bunny, the Puerto Rican superstar who dominates streaming with a distinctive style that mixes the rhythms and slang of his beloved island with contemporary reggaeton and trap. His latest release, “Debí Tirar Más Fotos,” is up for all of the top prizes, and if it takes album of the year it would be first to do so with vocals entirely in Spanish.
A conspicuous Grammy win would also elevate Bad Bunny as he heads to his next big gig, one week later: the Super Bowl.
The first halftime show performed entirely in Spanish is already set to make history. But his mere announcement for the big game, in the shadow of the Trump administration’s immigration raids, set off a political firestorm in which Bad Bunny has been denigrated by President Trump and right-wing media figures, while also being hailed by his supporters as a proud symbol of Latin identity.
In an interview weeks before the Super Bowl announcement, Bad Bunny had said he was avoiding American tour dates out of fears that the presence of immigration agents could put his fans at risk. (After the news, Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, said that ICE would “be all over” the big game.)
For the Grammys, Bad Bunny’s unique situation may be the biggest controversy in a year that is otherwise expected to be light on drama. This week’s ceremony, for example, is the first in more than a decade in which Taylor Swift, Beyoncé or Adele play no competitive part — removing the clash-of-the-divas mega-narrative that has often been the show’s most potent undercurrent.
To Harvey Mason Jr., a producer who has been chief executive of the Recording Academy since 2021, the success of Bad Bunny is one sign of the growth of the organization behind the Grammys, which has been on a push to diversify and revitalize its membership ranks after years of complaints that the Grammys were, at best, out of touch with contemporary pop. At worst, critics — and some artists — saw an opaque voting process that had repeatedly failed to properly recognize Black performers and women in top categories.
“What is says for us is that our community is growing, our industry is expanding,” Mason said in an interview. “We’re including more global music, and music that traditionally may not have made it onto Americans’ radios or streaming platforms.”
According to the academy, 73 percent of its current membership has joined since 2019, and last year alone 2,900 new voting members were added. Among those newest voters, 60 percent are people of color, 30 percent identify as women and almost half are 39 or younger. (About 15,000 members are eligible to vote for the awards.) The Grammys have also eliminated most of the anonymous review committees that held sway over the nominations in dozens of categories.
Yet Bad Bunny is just one potential story line at this year’s Grammys. After four unsuccessful nominations for album of the year, Lady Gaga is on her fifth nod with “Mayhem.” Could voters pull a classic “Two Against Nature” — or “Cowboy Carter,” as some saw it last year — and give Lady Gaga her belated due?
In the record of the year category, Lamar’s ballad “Luther,” featuring SZA, is seen by Grammy watchers as worthy, maybe even deserving. But after Lamar’s dominance last year with “Not Like Us,” which took both record and song of the year, could voters demur (and perhaps go for Rosé and Mars’s smash “Apt.”)?
And for song of the year, which recognizes songwriters, will voters leap to reward the composers of “Golden,” the breakout hit of “KPop Demon Hunters,” which many had expected to garner more nominations? (Betters on Polymarket, the prediction market platform, are giving that outcome top odds, though they might find out how tricky Grammy voters can be to read.)
This is also a transitional year of sorts for the Grammys. It is the show’s last airing on CBS, its broadcast partner for more than 50 years, before moving to ABC, Disney+ and Hulu in 2027. And, for his sixth time in the role, it is Trevor Noah’s finale as a host.
The performance segments will include an extended “in memoriam” segment, which has become a signature of Ben Winston, who has overseen the show since 2021. The list of music figures who have died over the last year includes many titans: Brian Wilson, Sly Stone, Ozzy Osbourne, Roberta Flack, Marianne Faithfull, Jimmy Cliff. As part of that segment, Lauryn Hill will pay tribute to Flack and D’Angelo, and Post Malone will lead a group honoring Osborne.
Winston and his fellow executive producers, Raj Kapoor and Jesse Collins, have earned praise for a fresher, more dynamic broadcast show from Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. But to Grammy watchers, many of this year’s nominees feel like holdovers from last year. Besides Lamar, those include Eilish (her song “Wildflower” was on “Hit Me Hard and Soft,” up for album of the year in 2025); Roan (her track “The Subway” is nominated after her performance of “Pink Pony Club” at last year’s ceremony garnered a standing ovation); and Carpenter (she’s nominated for “Manchild” after last year’s “Espresso” and “Please Please Please” blew up).
“The Grammys can only reflect the juicy stories that were,” said Bill Werde, the director of the Bandier music business program at Syracuse University. “And this was a fairly calm year in the space of popular music.”
Another potential story line involves rap, which this year has three LPs in contention for album of the year: Lamar’s “GNX,” Tyler, the Creator’s “Chromakopia” and Clipse’s “Let God Sort Em Out.”
But those nominations also came shortly after rap briefly suffered a symbolic blow to its wider pop-culture clout: In two weeks last fall, there were no rap songs in the Top 40 of Billboard’s all-genre Hot 100 singles chart, for the first time since 1990 — partly, though perhaps not entirely, a result of tweaks to the chart’s rules.
Dan Runcie, who analyzes the business of streaming and hip-hop on Trapital, a newsletter and podcast, said the quality and breadth of the nominated work proved that “hip-hop is still healthy.”
“People actually listened to those albums,” he added. “They were not just critical darlings.”
R&B is getting also getting a highlight. Leon Thomas, who began his career as a child performer on Broadway before becoming an in-demand songwriter and producer, has six nominations, including album of the year (“Mutt”) and best new artist. The new artist category also includes two soulful young English singers who had breakout years: Olivia Dean and Lola Young.
One potential problem looming for the Grammys is its relationship to the country music community. This year there are no country artists in any of the top categories, and two of the genre’s most popular and influential artists, Morgan Wallen and Zach Bryan, declined to submit their latest works for consideration.
“We’re always recruiting, always listening and always focused on making sure new voices from every genre have a seat at the table,” Mason said. “Growth across multiple areas at once is a delicate balancing act. There’s no perfect formula, but the work is ongoing.”
Some of the biggest questions hanging over the show are not just whether Bad Bunny will win, but whether it will send a political message — and whether Bad Bunny himself, in an acceptance speech, would be the one sending it.
Mason said that would be up to Bad Bunny himself.
“What type of organization would we be,” he said, “if we didn’t allow or encourage artists to express themselves in the way they want to?”
Ben Sisario, a reporter covering music and the music industry, has been writing for The Times for more than 20 years.
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