Grammys: politics takes centre stage at provocative awards

This was the American music industry’s annual jamboree of prize-giving and score-setting, which steadily turned political last night, offering jibes at President Trump and messages on immigration and the gathering campaign against sexual harassment.

The latter movement, which has swept through Hollywood, had barely been acknowledged by the music industry except in the form of an extended and messy legal battle between the musician known as Kesha and her former producer, Dr Luke, whom she accused of physical and sexual abuse.

Hers was the most powerful performance of the night. Introduced by the musician Janelle Monae, who prefaced the act with a monologue in support of the “MeToo” and “TimesUp” campaigns, she performed the single Pray. “I will bring thunder I will bring rain,” she sang, dressed in white, in a performance that seemed squarely aimed at an audience of one. “And when I have finished they wont even know your name.”

The Cuban-American musician Camila Cabello, who had just served as Kesha’s backing singer, then took the stage to declare herself one of the “Dreamers”, the young people brought to the United States by their parents, as undocumented immigrants, whose fate is now the subject of an ongoing battle in Congress. “I’m part Cuban Mexican immigrant born in East Havana,” she said, before reading the Emma Lazarus poem on the Statue of Liberty and introducing another set of immigrants known as U2, performing on New York Harbour.

Rihanna at the awards with Bryson Tiller, left and DJ Khaled, right, where she won for best rap/sung performance for Loyalty

KEVIN WINTER/GETTY IMAGES

The show had promised politics even before it began. An interview in which the rapper Jay-Z accused President Trump of racism had aired the night before the awards show, and had duly elicited a response from the leader of the free world on Twitter that morning.

“Jay for president,” shouted Kendrick Lamar, after winning the Grammy for rap album of the year. Lamar opened the show with a potent, racially charged performance, that featured a host of men in hoodies being shot on stage, and was interrupted at intervals by the comedian Dave Chapelle, who asked incredulously: “Is this okay with CBS?” – a reference to the network that was screening the performance.

“I just want to remind the audience,” Mr Chapelle said, during another interruption, “that the only thing more frightening than watching a black man be honest in America is being an honest black man in America.”

Mr Corden, the British comic actor turned late night talk show host, hailed a diverse list of nominees “and also, for the second year in a row, the least diverse host in Grammy Awards history.” He provoked groans, early in the night, when toasting Jay-Z for a lifetime achievement award and declaring: “Me and you are hood forever.”

The city was hosting the awards show for the first time in fifteen years, at Madison Square Garden. Frank Sinatra is dead, but Tony Bennett still lives and breathes and was brought onto stage with the musician John Legend, who noted that Bennett won a Grammy in 1952, and then coaxed him into a small duet of New York, New York.

British musicians were largely out of contention, though an absent Ed Sheeran won for best solo pop performance, for Shape of You, the Rolling Stones won for best traditional blues album and Sir Elton John, fresh from an announcement that he planned to retire from touring, sang a duet with Miley Cyrus.

But hopes among a seemingly partisan, New York crowd, that Jay-Z, a native son of Brooklyn, would achieve one of the night’s major awards were dashed by the dominance of the R&B star Bruno Mars, who swept the board. After winning album of the year, Mr Mars recalled being a 15-year-old in Hawaii, singing songs by for tourists by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, “written with nothing but joy . . . I remember seeing people dancing with each other from two sides of the globe,” he said. Writing the album, 24K Magic “hopefully I could feel that joy with everybody dancing and everybody moving,” he said, in one of the least political speeches of the night.

BIG WINNERS

Record Of The Year
24K Magic - Bruno Mars

Album Of The Year
24K Magic - Bruno Mars

Song Of The Year
That’s What I Like - Bruno Mars and co-songwriters

Best New Artist
Alessia Cara

Best Pop Solo Performance
Shape Of You - Ed Sheeran

Best Pop Duo/Group Performance
Feel It Still - Portugal. The Man

Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album
Tony Bennett Celebrates 90 - (Various Artists) Dae Bennett, Producer

Best Pop Vocal Album
÷ (Divide) - Ed Sheeran

Best Rock Performance
You Want It Darker - Leonard Cohen

Best Rock Song
Run - Foo Fighters, songwriters

Best Rock Album
A Deeper Understanding - The War On Drugs

Best Alternative Music Album
Sleep Well Beast - The National

Best R&B Performance
That’s What I Like - Bruno Mars

Best Traditional R&B Performance
Redbone - Childish Gambino

Best R&B Song
That’s What I Like - Bruno Mars and co-songwriters

Best R&B Album
24K Magic - Bruno Mars

Best Rap Performance
HUMBLE. - Kendrick Lamar

Best Rap/Sung Performance
LOYALTY. - Kendrick Lamar Featuring Rihanna

Best Rap Song
HUMBLE. - Kendrick Lamar and co-songwriters

Best Rap Album
DAMN. - Kendrick Lamar

Best Music Video
HUMBLE. - Kendrick Lamar