The 2023 Grammy awards just concluded and as usual it’s one of those divisive events that gets everyone chatting for days, weeks and months afterwards.
A lot has been said about what the Academy got wrong this year, but since it’s the month of love, let’s keep it positive and focus on the groundbreaking firsts and history-making moments we’ve all been fortunate to witness in real time…
Iranian singer Shervin Hajipour won his Grammy Award for a song he produced last year in honor of Iran's peaceful protest movement. This auspicious first of its kind prize was presented to him by U.S. first lady Jill Biden. Hajipour and the Iranian people won the U.S. Recording Academy's first-ever Song for Social Change Special Merit Award
Beyonce broke Georg Solti’s long-standing Grammy record, meaning she now owns more Grammys than any other artist: dead or alive. Her total stands at a staggering total of 32 awards and 79 nominations from the Grammy Awards for her music over the year
Kim Petras is the first openly transgendered Grammy winner after, alongside Sam Smith, winning the category - Best Pop Duo/Group. The award was handed over by the iconic Madonna and Sam graciously watched as Petras made the acceptance speech, ensuring that it was a true moment for the history books.
Lizzo is the first black woman to win record of the year since Whitney Houston won the prize in 1994. Lizzo’s self-love anthem About Damn Time won the Record Of The Year Award, yet Lizzo graciously used the moment to dedicate the award to all the artists who inspired her to never give up, name-dropping Beyonce in her speech as “the artist of our lives”. Queens supporting Queens, we love to see it! Not to be dramatic, but this means that she’s the first black woman to win this award in this century, right? 🎉SCREAM 🎉
Tobias Jesso from Vancouver, Canada, won the first ever Songwriter of the year: non-classical award and Best Score Soundtrack for Video Games and other Interactive media (as these are new categories) - gamers unite!
Dr. Dre has been on everyone’s mind since that amazing 2022 Superbowl HipHop spectacular. He can now flex with a whole new award category, named in his honor - Dr. Dre Global Impact award. Dre is a founding father of the rap game and there really is no greater homage than this, during the celebration of the 50th Anniversary of Hip Hop music!
Carly Pearce and Ashley McBryde were the first female winners of the Best Country Duo/group Performance - “Sisters are doing it for themselves”
Viola Davis joined the esteemed group of only 18 E.G.O.T winners - proving her exceptionalism as an artist!
What is an E.G.O.T you ask?
This is a very small group of super talented artists, who during the length and impact of their creative careers have won the big four awards:
E - Emmy Award
G- Grammy Award
O - Oscar Award
T - Tony Award
The full list of E.G.O.T winners might surprise you!
This awards season may not have gone exactly how everyone expected, but it did provide lots of talking points.
What the awards got right was that they used the opportunity to amplify marginalized voices and lesser known genres. It’s also amazing to see inclusive spaces and categories being created, for underrepresented countries and languages. First steps are crucial, and it was great to see some being made this year!
Let’s raise a toast to the real winners 🥂
