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That's a wrap for Music's Biggest Night! The 2024 GRAMMYs were extraordinarily stuffed with incredible moments, from performances to historic wins to unforgettable surprises.

Several of the most memorable moments came from first-time winners. In fact, there were 126 at the 66th GRAMMY Awards, spanning a wide array of talent across genres. From Colombian songstress Karol G to indie rock supergroup boygenius and country singer Brandy Clark, take a look at some of the biggest acts that took home their very first golden gramophones.

Miley Cyrus Celebrated Her First Wins With A Pumped-Up Performance

Miley Cyrus may have taken home the coveted Record Of The Year for "Flowers," but a different Category may have been the biggest achievement. Just before her performance on the GRAMMY stage, Cyrus won her first-ever golden gramophone for Best Pop Solo Performance.

"This award is amazing, but I really hope it doesn't change anything, because my life was beautiful yesterday," Cyrus said while accepting her first award.

"Flowers" is featured on Cyrus' 2023 album Endless Summer Vacation. "Flowers" was also nominated for GRAMMYs for Song Of The Year.

Karol G's First GRAMMYs Resulted In Her First GRAMMY

Karol G has had a meteoric rise over the past several years, and that continued unabated at Music's Biggest Night.

At the 2024 GRAMMYs Premiere Ceremony, Karol G won the GRAMMY for Best Música Urbana Album, for her 2023 LP Mañana Será Bonito. (She'd previously been nominated at the 2022 GRAMMYs, for the same category, for KG0516.

"Hello everybody, my name is Karol G. I am from Medellín, Colombia. This is my first time at the GRAMMYs, and this is my first time holding my own GRAMMY," she said, utterly concisely.

Victoria Monét Completed A Lifelong Goal…

Victoria Monét won big at the GRAMMYs, including taking home the award for Best New Artist. The singer also took home golden gramophones for Best R&B Album and Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical for Jaguar II.

Monét has been nominated for 10 GRAMMYs over her career as both a solo act and songwriter. When accepting the GRAMMY Award for Best New Artist, Monét compared herself to a plant growing from soil. 

"My roots have been growing underneath ground, unseen, for so long, and I feel like today I'm sprouting, finally above ground," she said.

…And So Did Coco Jones

Monét’s fellow R&B nominee — and one-time collaborator — Coco Jones also turned a nearly 15-year journey into GRAMMY success, winning Best R&B Performance for her song "ICU."

Tyla, Me'shell NdegeOcello & Kylie Minogue Won In First-Time Categories

At the 2024 GRAMMYs, there were three new Categories — which meant three inaugural winners. South African singer/songwriter Tyla took home her first GRAMMY with her win for Best African Music Performance for her smash hit "Water," while Me'shell NdegeOcello and Kylie Minogue notched their second wins each, in the new Best Alternative Jazz Album and Best Pop Dance Recording Categories, respectively.

After 16 Years, Paramore Got GRAMMY Gold 

Myspace-era alt wizards Paramore enjoyed a stunning resurgence with their 2023 album This Is Why. They'd been nominated in past ceremonies — their first nominations coming in 2008 — but at the 2024 GRAMMYs, they nabbed the trophy for the prestigious Best Rock Album Category. And with their first win, they made GRAMMY history: Paramore is the first female-fronted rock band to win Best Rock Album.

Lainey Wilson Continued A Massive Year With A GRAMMY

Much like Tyla, country star Lainey Wilson nailed it on the first try — as far as the Recording Academy goes. She was nominated twice at the 2024 GRAMMYs, and took home a golden gramophone for Best Country Album, for Bell Bottom Country.

Clearly, the phenomenon of a first-time GRAMMY nominee taking it home transcends genres and continents.

Second Time Was A Charm For Zach Bryan

Country great Zach Bryan's been nominated before — at the 2023 GRAMMYs, for Best Country Solo Performance, for "Something in the Orange."

This time, he brought home the golden gramophone for Best Country Duo/Group Performance, for "I Remember Everything." Bryan was also nominated for Best Country Album (Zach Bryan) and Best Country Song, also for "I Remember Everything."

First-Time Nominees Boygenius Won Three Times

Women dominated the 2024 GRAMMYs, which certainly applies to boygenius — who consist of three women, and cleaned up at the ceremony. And, they too were first-time nominees

Boygenius took home three GRAMMYs revolving around 2023's the record, including Best Alternative Music Album, Best Rock Song and Best Rock Performance — both for the stirring, gender-flipped "Not Strong Enough."

Peso Pluma Went From First-Time Nominee To First-Time Winner

Música Mexicana, stand up! Upstart Peso Pluma took home the GRAMMY for Best Música Mexicana Album (Including Tejano), for his tremendous album GÉNESIS.

As the status of Mexico on the global stage continues to swell, take Pluma's win as a sign to keep your ear to the ground.

Brandy Clark Left A Winner

Roots-heavy singer Brandy Clark's been nominated for 17 GRAMMYs over the years, but never gave up.

At the 2024 GRAMMYs, she won for Best Americana Performance for "Dear Insecurity" — and she played a corker of a version at the Premiere Ceremony with the string duo SistaStrings.

Fred again.. Proved To Be Dance Music’s Latest Hero

2022 saw Fred again.. rise as one of dance music's most promising new stars with the release of his compilation album, USB, and his third studio album, Actual Life 3 — and both helped him win his first pair of GRAMMYs in 2024. USB's "Rumble" (a collaboration with Skrillex and Four Tet) scored Best Dance/Electronic Recording, and Actual Life 3 took home Best Dance/Electronic Music Album.

Taylor Swift & Kacey Musgraves Celebrated Historic Firsts

While winning a GRAMMY was nothing new to 2024 winners Taylor Swift and Kacey Musgraves, they both had feats that marked big firsts in GRAMMY history. Swift became the first artist to be awarded Album Of The Year four times with her win for Midnights, while Musgraves' win for Best Country Duo/Group Performance for her Zach Bryan collaboration "I Remember Everything" made her the first artist to win in all four Country Field Categories.

Keep checking GRAMMY.com for stories about the 2024 GRAMMYs — and the Recording Academy thanks you for tuning into Music's Biggest Night! If you missed it, stream it on Paramount+ for maximum musical glory.

2024 GRAMMY Nominations: See The Full Winners & Nominees List

Is it possible to write someone else's song for them? Which isn't the same as being an outside writer: it's writing something that spiritually belongs to your influence. That's the sensation that came over guitar and banjo picker Billy Strings, when he wrote "California Sober."

"California Sober" had the lilt and thematic ring of something like Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard's 1983 hit "Reasons to Quit"; in fact, it felt like it emanated from Nelson entirely. Which makes sense, given that Strings had just hit the road with the country patriarch.

"I don't think I would've recorded the song if Willie wouldn't have wanted to do it with me," Strings tells GRAMMY.com. "It's like, I'm not even going to cut this unless Willie wants to do it. It would just be like ripping off Willie's sound."

Exhilaratingly, the Red-Headed Stranger accepted — and their resultant duet of "California Sober" is nominated for Best American Roots Song at the 2024 GRAMMYs. And that's just the beginning of his prospects at Music's Biggest Night, coming up on Feb. 4.

At the 2024 GRAMMYs, Strings also picked up a nomination for Best Bluegrass Album for Me/And/Dad — his album with his bluegrass old-timer father, Terry Barber. And Dierks Bentley's "High Note," featuring Strings, is up for Best Country Duo/Group Performance.

Read on for an interview with Strings about how these albums and songs came to be, and what he learns from Nelson, Bentley, and Béla Fleck, and much more.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

Tell me about your relationship with the Recording Academy, and the GRAMMYs.

Well, the last few years, let's see: we were nominated for Best Bluegrass Album for Home, and we won that [in 2021]. And the next year we were nominated for two different things. Can't really remember, but we didn't win anything. [Editor's note: Strings received nominations for Best Bluegrass Album (Renewal) and Best American Roots Performance ("Love And Regret").]

That was when I went out there and checked it out, and had a great time being on the red carpet and seeing all the crazy outfits and stuff. And it's kind of crazy because although we didn't win, my friend Béla Fleck won.

I played on [his] record [2021's My Bluegrass Heart]. I was so honored to play with Béla Fleck and all those amazing musicians on that record, and it's been like 20 years since Bela made a bluegrass record — it's like, man, he deserves it.

And that was a big moment in my life — being in the studio with those guys, making that record. I still look back and I'm grateful to Béla for giving me the opportunity to do that because it gave me so much more confidence in myself. I still get almost emotional when I think about Béla actually asking me to be on his record because it just means so much to me. It's just always been kind of crazy. I'm just completely flabbergasted and honored because I never thought I'd be nominated for a GRAMMY or anything — let alone we won one already.

[Me/And/Dad] is probably the most important record I'll ever make because it's with my dad. And I think it's an important record for bluegrass too, just because of the songs and kind of the way we played those songs. And there's an old style that, as time goes on, the guys who sing and play like that are kind of dying off.

My dad's one of that older guard, and he just has this beautiful voice and amazing guitar playing, and he taught me everything I know about bluegrass music and it's deep in my heart and soul. It was so cool to be able to call my dad and say, hey man, guess what? Our record got nominated for a GRAMMY," and he's like, "Holy s—."

Can you drill deeper into why it's the most important thing you'll ever make?

Because everything I know about music, and bluegrass, I learned from my dad.

He started me off really young in my childhood; it was so based around the music. All the sweet memories that I have from when I was a boy were based around bluegrass music, and it seeps into your heart and soul and gets under your skin in a way that I guess only bluegrassers could really know.

It's music that can make me cry and make me laugh, and it gives me déjà vu, and it's almost a portal directly to my childhood back before I knew anything dirty about the earth. It was back, simpler times, just hanging around the campfire, picking music, and with my family and just beautiful times. 

And whenever I get together with my dad and play, it brings me back to just being a little boy.

And can you speak more to the importance of Béla Fleck? I interviewed him at Newport Folk, and he couldn't have been kinder nor gentler, with a fraction of the ego he could rightfully have.

He's the best man. He's become a good friend of mine. Obviously, he was my hero first. And so that's always good when you meet your heroes and they're really cool people. It means a lot.

And he's just like any of us; he's constantly just playing and trying to write and get better. He said to me one time, "We're all just trying to keep our heads above water," 'cause maybe I was feeling down about my playing or whatever, he's like, man, we're all doing the same thing.

What he's done for new acoustic music is incredible. The things that he's done with the five string banjo, and not only him, but his bands like the Flecktones and New Grass Revival with Sam Bush and John Cowan and those guys just, that's a big inspiration to us up and comers that are playing bluegrass music but like a little bit more progressive side.

I listen to everything from heavy metal to hip-hop and jazz and everything, so it's kind of sweet when you can take bluegrass instruments and play any kind of fusion music. And Béla is a huge innovator in that world.

One thing he told me was, "There is no best." I'm sure that resonates with you in some way.

Yeah, absolutely. Everybody's kind of the best at what they do. I'll never be as good as Tony Rice, ever — not if I practice eight hours a day for the rest of my life. I'll never touch him. But if I just kind of focus on what I'm doing and try to invent my own voice, maybe I'll be the best one at that.

How would you characterize that voice you've developed?

Well, I was raised playing bluegrass music — pretty traditional bluegrass. And then in my teenage years, I veered off and played heavy metal and got into more writing songs and just lots of different music other than bluegrass.

But when I came back to bluegrass, some of those things kind of stuck, particularly the stage performance thing. A lot of bluegrass bands, I feel like just stand there and play, 'cause they don't really have to do anything else. I can't help but move around and jump around and bang my head and stuff like I used to in a heavy metal band, 'cause that's how I learned to perform.

I've seen people be like, man, this is not headbanging music. And I'm like, "Well, hell yeah, it is."

Can you talk about Dierks Bentley, and "High Note," and the road to the nomination for Best Country Duo/Group Performance?

Dierks is a good buddy. He's just a real dude. I met him a few years ago. I was walking down the street, I was going to lunch with [flatpicker] Bryan Sutton and this white pickup truck pulled up, and Brian's like, "Oh, hey, what's up, man?"

We started talking. I didn't even know who it was. And the inside of his pickup truck was a mess. It was just like, s— everywhere, tapes and old, just like my car. So I'm like, okay, well, who's this guy? And then I realized he's a big country star, and I liked that he was a big country star and drove around with a messy truck.

Are you a messy truck guy too?

I try to keep it pretty nice nowadays, but yeah, usually my s— gets trashed. There's like fishing lures and just bulls— everywhere.

So I don't know, that made an impression on me for some reason — the inside of the cab of his truck. But after that, we became buddies and we had picked a couple times. He's a good buddy of [mandolinist] Sam Bush as well and so that's kind of a mutual friend of ours.

And there had been a couple times on stage where me and Sam were playing with Dierks, and he can play some bluegrass, man. He knows a lot of bluegrass songs and stuff.

So when he hit me up to do this song with him, I was like, of course, but especially when I heard it on a high note, he knows I like to smoke a lot of weed and stuff, so it was kind of like the perfect song for me. And it had that bluegrass flavor so I could jump on guitar and sing the tenors and stuff, sing the harmonies and stuff.

How popular is weed in the bluegrass community?

Well, I mean, in our scene it's pretty popular, but there's also folks that don't like to see me up there smoking or anything… maybe the more old-school kind of conservative types. But I just do my thing, man. I'm not trying to hurt nobody.

Speaking of, we have "California Sober" with Willie Nelson.

Man, so, Willie Nelson, holy f—.

Yeah, dude.

Wow, I love him so much. My grandpa loved him a lot, and my mom. When I grew up, my dad would, he'd be singing "Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain" and all them songs, and a lot of songs off Red Headed Stranger, I heard growing up — my dad singing those, and my grandpa playing the records, and stuff.

Willie was a big deal, especially to my grandpa, and he's been dead since 2001. So I always think about my grandpa when I think of Willie too, 'cause he loved him so much. If my grandpa was around to hear this song, he would just lose it.

And the way that it came about was, I went on tour with Willie on his road show, The Outlaw Tour, and we were one of the bands on there. And during that tour, Willie invited me up on his bus, and we hung out for a little while and just shot the s— and told jokes, and he told me how he got Trigger and everything, and talked about Django Reinhardt and Doc Watson.

I just had a great time. It was like hanging out with my grandpa or something, and I had a great time on the tour. And when I got home from that tour, I was sitting out by my burn pile and I ripped off this piece of cardboard, and I just had this tune going in my head, "I'm California sober, as they say / Lately, I can't find no other way."

I just wrote it down on this piece of cardboard. And then I went inside and kind of started writing a song — and I realized that I was writing a Willie Nelson song. I was so inspired by being on the road with Willie that I came home and I wrote this song — it's like I wrote it, but it was such a Willie song.

So what happened next?

I had my manager reach out to his manager, or whatever, and say, "Hey, here's this song that I wrote. Would you want to do it with me? And the answer was a resounding, 'Hell yes.'"

We made the track here in Nashville with me and the band, and then I went down to Luck, to his studio down there at his home in Texas, and Willie came in and we just hung out for a while, man. He sat down in front of the mic and he said, "Well, what do you want me to do?" And I was like, What the hell? I'm nobody, dude; you're Willie Nelson. You're asking me?

But he was like, "Well, do you want me to sing a verse?" I was like, "Tell, try to sing harmonies on the chorus and then take a crack at that second verse." So he put the harmonies on the chorus just fine. And when he got to this verse, it seemed like he was kind of just still learning the words a little bit, and I don't know if something [happened] like, he got frustrated on one take or something.

The next time, he just nailed it, and it was like this young Willie voice came out and he just sang so beautifully, and I had goosebumps, and it was just incredible, man.

And then right after that, he finished his part, he said, "We got it?" And I said, "Man, I think we got it. He said, "OK, let's go play cards."

So we went out back to his little spot there, where he's been playing cards for 50 years with everyone, Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson. His old buddy, Steve, [was there]; we were sitting there playing poker, and… I'm sitting there playing cards with two old buddies who have been playing cards together for 50 years, man. Hearing those two talk s— to each other, man.

They took a thousand dollars of my money real quick, and I would've paid another thousand just to sit there at that table and hear them bulls— each other.

What will your call with Willie be like if "California Sober" wins?

I'm going to say, "Hey, man, I'm coming to get my thousand dollars back."

Béla Fleck Has Always Been Told He's The Best. But To Him, There Is No Best.

Country singer/songwriter Charlie Worsham didn't find immediate success after arriving in Nashville in the late aughts — but 15 years later, he couldn't be happier about his luck.

"One of the best gifts I could have ever had was a practice run at all this, where I shared the victories and the losses with this band of brothers," says Worsham, who is referring to his stint playing mandolin in KingBilly, which had a brief reality TV show but didn't set the charts on fire.

Since splitting in 2010, though, Worsham has become a Nashville long-hauler, a respected first-call known for his tasteful guitar and mandolin playing, smooth vocal delivery, and ace songwriting heard on an enviable collection of cuts. In case you need a reminder, visit his Spotify playlist "Sh!t I've Played On," which catalogs his appearances with marquee country stars like Eric Church, Luke Combs, Vince Gill, Kacey Musgraves, Carrie Underwood and Keith Urban.

But while his own albums, 2013's Rubberband and 2017's Beginning of Things, as well as his 2021 Sugarcane EP, have produced hits like "Could It Be" — which peaked at No. 13 on the Country Airplay chart and cracked the Billboard Hot 100 in 2013 — solo success has largely eluded Worsham. 

So, he kept his head down and did what he came to Nashville to do: make great music. He kept his spirits up by rallying friends like Brothers Osborne's John Osborne and The 400 Unit's Sadler Vaden to play his "Every Damn Monday" Nashville gigs celebrating the music of Lynyrd Skynyrd, Prince and others as fundraisers for his Follow Your Heart arts foundation. In 2022, he earned the ACM Award for Acoustic Guitar Player of the Year, and he is currently nominated for Musician of the Year at the 2023 CMA Awards, which will air on Nov. 8.

For his latest release, the five-song EP Compadres, he stacked the deck with five Nashville friends and collaborators — Combs, Lainey Wilson, Dierks Bentley, Elle King and Kip Moore — and the results are bearing fruit. A re-recording of "How I Learned to Pray," originally cut for Rubberband and now featuring Combs, has already eclipsed the original's Spotify streaming figures two-fold while inspiring more than 14,000 TikTok clips.

"When touring went away in 2020 for a minute, I just picked up more and more session work," Worsham says. "It had always been sort of my moonlighting gig that I loved to do, because the goal is always to play more music and that's one of the best ways to do it with the best players around. I started playing on more and more records and driving to those sessions going, Man, it's going to be a great day. But the one thing that can make it better is that this was my record, so thus began Compadres."

With the Jaren Johnson-produced EP in the can, though, Worsham realized Compadres shouldn't be a one-off event. He now intends to revisit the concept between proper albums, and there's no shortage of potential collaborators. All of which begs the question: Who might make those hypothetical sequels?

"One of the first friends I made in town was John Osborne — how do I not cut a song with him and TJ someday?" he says. "The last couple of times I saw Ashley McBryde, we were talking about our love of bluegrass and what side projects might come of that, and how can I not do a song with her at some point? It would be really cool to create a full-circle moment with Eric Church."

Worsham sat with Grammy.com to share the backstories from the five collaborations on Compadres.

"Creekwater Clear" feat. Elle King

The story of "Creekwater Clear" is that hero's journey of where you grow up in what you know is home, [but] you cross that threshold for a bigger world. You come back changed, but you now have this superpower of perspective. And as Elle has firmly planted her roots in country music, I see it as she's just being welcomed home. She's belonged here this whole time.

She's one of two people who came over to the house actually to sing the vocals. I remember she walked through the front door, my wife's there, and I'm sure if you listen closely you can probably hear [our son] Gabe in the background of her singing. But it's a perfect example of what Compadres represents in terms of not just where I am in music right now, but where I am in life — we're doing a lot of living, and Elle's right there with us sharing the joys and the struggles of parenthood and having a young kid, and doing that while traveling the world. Hers is one of my favorite Instagram accounts to see because it's always something fun that combines rock and roll and toddlers.

"Handful of Dust" feat. Lainey Wilson

I had a [co-]write booked with Lainey and I was really excited about it. She can sing, and she's got songs. "Things a Man Oughta Know" — that's one of those moments where the heart and the chart actually intersect, which is a hard thing to do.

The day before, I went for a run and put her record on and just played it on repeat. I started kicking myself on this run, like, How have I not been jamming this record? This reminds me of Rubberband, my first record. Not tooting my own horn or anything, just I know how much time I put into writing that first record and I thought, I can hear the 10,000 hours that went into this. I can hear that this is somebody who knows exactly who they are and exactly where they're from, and they are unapologetic in presenting themselves in an authentic way. 

So I show up, we walk up to each other, and it was like we were finishing each other's sentences. I'm just going, "Lainey, I spent all day listening to your record. I'm blown away. I love it. I can't believe it reminds me of when I put out my first," and she's going, "When I first moved to town in my camper and Rubberband came out, it had this effect on me, too." You just sometimes never know when you're in the middle of something, the impact it has on other people. 

I remember the first No. 1 I ever played on was Eric Church's "Like Jesus Does [from 2013's Chief]. But the record that moved me to town was Eric's [2006 debut album] Sinners Like Me. He didn't know me when that record came out, but then I got to know him later and tell him that part of my story and how his story inspired mine. 

"How I Learned To Pray" feat. Luke Combs

I love to call it coinci-God, but first chance I had to really get to know Luke was down in Key West to write for what was going to be a bluegrass record that I'm crossing my fingers still gets made.

I gave him a head's up when I got there. I was like, "Man, I don't want to be rude, but there is one phone call that might come that I'm going to have to take." My wife Kristen and I were expecting our son Gabe at the time, and it was that point where we had told a handful of family members but we had yet to tell the bigger world, and we were waiting for the doctor to call to say whether we'd have a boy or a girl. He totally got it — at that point, I'm sure he and [his wife] Nicole were about to head down that same road, too, and thinking about starting a family. 

[But] it wasn't while I was down there, it was on the flight home. I was on a layover in Atlanta and I wrote down the gate somewhere, I think it's A29, and my wife calls me: "I got the news, you want to wait until you get home?" It's like, "Baby, you know me, I can't wait." She tells me, and I'm bawling. The first person I text is Luke, and it wasn't much later they were expecting their first. Nothing teaches you how to pray like having a kid, so that song chose itself for us. And to this day, it's actually the highest-streaming song I've ever put out, and I never saw that coming.

"Kiss Like You Dance" feat. Kip Moore

The fall of 2014 was not my happiest season. I had a lot of stuff between the ears I was trying to figure out at that time. I was on tour with Kip, and he's a really perceptive dude. I think he knew I was struggling, and he made a point to look out for me that whole tour. And he just never quit calling and texting since that tour.

He had come to a gig I was playing at Station Inn [in Nashville], trying out new songs just for the heck of it. Kip was probably leaving for bus call later that night, so he came to the gig and we were catching up. I played that song, and later that night he texted me the universal signal for, Hey, you might have a hit on your hands, which is, "Hey man, are you going to cut that 'Kiss Like You Dance' song?" And I said, "I am now." 

But it was going to be a while until I could record, so when Compadres started to form as a concept, I thought, How cool would it be if we could both cut this song? We're both a little older and wiser, and we have to pick our nights to go crazy and wild. We made a great video for it, which actually has a great cameo from one of my longest-standing compadres, John Osborne, but we're drinking sweet tea that looks like whisky in the video. 

On the rare chance I am going to go have an all-nighter, I want Kip to be there, because the last real great [one] I remember was on tour with him in 2014. Somehow my bus ended up [being] the party bus. We had two nights in Chicago, and I think we had 30 people on a bus designed for 12. Let's just say I had to pay the cleaning fee for that.

"Things I Can't Control" feat. Dierks Bentley

At this point I've been spending the last couple of summers with Dierks, plus one of my funniest studio stories ever was from a Dierks session for Riser [in 2014]. To this day, I can't remember for sure if I'm playing mandolin on "Drunk on a Plane" or not. 

Back when he was making that record, I was doing a string of dates with Vince Gill in his band, and Vince had a gig on a Sunday night in Milwaukee, and Dierks's session was on Monday. I thought, Well, if I can get an early flight in, I'll make the session. I wake up probably 3 in the morning. I get to the airport, get on the plane to Nashville, rest my eyes, fall asleep. I wake up in a panic because the plane isn't moving and it turns out there was a snow delay, and so I missed that day of the session with Dierks. Thankfully, he kept calling me back.

I don't remember if I overdubbed the mandolin after the fact, but now I play it in the show [as part of Dierks' band] and he gives me a chance to shine every night. He's like my older brother in country [music], and I continue to learn from him and be reminded of how important it is to have fun, and how important it is to treat people well and share your spotlight.

Behind Old Dominion's No. 1 Hits: How Kenny Chesney, Food Poisoning & "Ballsy" Moves Created Their Funniest Memories

Updated Friday Oct. 13, 2023 to include info about Kendrick Lamar's most recent GRAMMY wins, as of the 2023 GRAMMYs.

A GRAMMY veteran these days, Kendrick Lamar has won 17 GRAMMYs and has received 47 GRAMMY nominations overall. A sizable chunk of his trophies came from the 58th annual GRAMMY Awards in 2016, when he walked away with five — including his first-ever win in the Best Rap Album category.

This installment of GRAMMY Rewind turns back the clock to 2016, revisiting Lamar's acceptance speech upon winning Best Rap Album for To Pimp A Butterfly. Though Lamar was alone on stage, he made it clear that he wouldn't be at the top of his game without the help of a broad support system. 

"First off, all glory to God, that's for sure," he said, kicking off a speech that went on to thank his parents, who he described as his "those who gave me the responsibility of knowing, of accepting the good with the bad."

Looking for more GRAMMYs news? The 2024 GRAMMY nominations are here!

He also extended his love and gratitude to his fiancée, Whitney Alford, and shouted out his Top Dawg Entertainment labelmates. Lamar specifically praised Top Dawg's CEO, Anthony Tiffith, for finding and developing raw talent that might not otherwise get the chance to pursue their musical dreams.

"We'd never forget that: Taking these kids out of the projects, out of Compton, and putting them right here on this stage, to be the best that they can be," Lamar — a Compton native himself — continued, leading into an impassioned conclusion spotlighting some of the cornerstone rap albums that came before To Pimp a Butterfly.

"Hip-hop. Ice Cube. This is for hip-hop," he said. "This is for Snoop Dogg, Doggystyle. This is for Illmatic, this is for Nas. We will live forever. Believe that."

To Pimp a Butterfly singles "Alright" and "These Walls" earned Lamar three more GRAMMYs that night, the former winning Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song and the latter taking Best Rap/Sung Collaboration (the song features Bilal, Anna Wise and Thundercat). He also won Best Music Video for the remix of Taylor Swift's "Bad Blood." 

Lamar has since won Best Rap Album two more times, taking home the golden gramophone in 2018 for his blockbuster LP DAMN., and in 2023 for his bold fifth album, Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers.

Watch Lamar's full acceptance speech above, and check back at GRAMMY.com every Friday for more GRAMMY Rewind episodes. 

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