On camera in her tasteful, plant-filled apartment, Tiana Major9 is aglow. That’s because she’s up for Best R&B Song at the 2021 GRAMMY Awards show on Sunday, March 14, for "Collide," her collaboration with the hip-hop duo EARTHGANG for Queen & Slim: The Soundtrack.

And to hear her tell it, the news came as a complete surprise.

"I was completely unaware," Major9 says, a hint of astonishment still radiating off her, in the latest episode of GRAMMYs At Home. "I got a phone call from people on my team just saying, 'Congratulations, you’re GRAMMY-nominated.'" And, again, I had no idea what they were talking about because, again, I was unaware."

It’s a hell of a story; watch her tell the rest of it above, and tune into the 2021 GRAMMY Awards show on Sunday, March 14 to find out if she’ll win!

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Artists on the rise got their metaphorical flowers on Feb. 1, when GRAMMY House played host to the Beats & Blooms Emerging Artist Showcase. The performance-heavy event was produced in conjunction with PEOPLE and Sephora and hosted by comedian Matt Friend.

Some took the floral theme quite literally — like Texas rapper and singer Teezo Touchdown, who took to the stage clasping a giant flower bouquet, his microphone tucked somewhere inside. With his crisp white leather jacket and white gloves, Teezo looked fresh as he performed tracks from his recently released debut album, How Do You Sleep at Night? It wasn't hard to see how late legends like Prince and Rick James have influenced his artistry, and the audience appreciated his fly sartorial style.

Another dynamic performance came from Cocoa Sarai, a Jamaican-American singer/songwriter who has worked with artists such as Dr. Dre and Anderson .Paak (the latter of whom helped Sarai earn a GRAMMY in 2020 for her work on his Best R&B Album-winning project, Ventura). The Brooklyn-born artist — who is part of the new Music Artist Accelerator initiative presented by MasterCard, GRAMMY House’s primary sponsor — delivered an impactful set that included her bird-flipping anthem "Bigger Person" and was assisted by a great beatboxer named Fahz.

As many attendees got glammed up at Sephora's makeup station, the event co-sponsor also presented one of the night's performers. Sephora Sounds highlighted twin sisters Inah and Yahzi of the viral group Ain't Afraid, whose energetic performance hit home. During their charismatic set, which featured the sisters both singing and rapping, the pair told the crowd that their lighthearted stage presence is a way to turn some of their trauma into positive art.

Inah and Yahzi weren't the only sibling duo to take the stage at Beats & Blooms. Brandon and Savannah Hudson — aka BETWEEN FRIENDS — first got national attention as quarter-finalists on "America's Got Talent" in 2013, and have since racked up millions of monthly plays on Spotify for what they like to call "laptop dream pop". BETWEEN FRIENDS performed songs from their 2023 album, I Love My Girl, She's My Boy.

Tiana Major9 closed out the event with an exciting performance that featured a song debut and a sing-along. After premiering a new track called "Braids," the Motown artist got everyone to join together for an exquisite cover of Faith Evans' smoldering "Soon As I Get Home". 

GRAMMY House's three days of events are a place for a diverse array of music industry professionals, musicians and social creators to immerse in the pulse of culture, take the torch and carry it forward — and Beats & Blooms was a powerful example of just that.

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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."

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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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It’s April and for the Southern California music scene that means one thing: It’s time for Coachella.

Over two consecutive weekends, April 14-16 and 21-23, the Empire Polo Club in Indio will welcome hundreds of thousands of attendees (not to mention all the people watching the live streams) for the 22nd edition of the festival. 

What is rather striking about this particular edition is that, at the time of writing, the event is not completely sold out; tickets to weekend two are still available. There is no way to discern exactly why there is still availability this year, but the lineup doesn’t seem to be the culprit. The 2023 Coachella lineup has massive mainstream appeal, as well as many up-and-coming acts.

The ever-elusive R&B star Frank Ocean will perform a headlining set as the speculation around a new album reaches critical mass. Bad Bunny, who was Spotify’s most streamed artist of 2022 and the record holder for the highest-grossing tour in history, will be headlining as well. From there, the festival features a slew of major pop acts like Charli XCX, Rosalía, and Metro Boomin’, as well as exciting surprises like the first-ever performance from the MySpace-era, alternative pop hero Jai Paul.

In addition to the names in big text, the Coachella lineup boasts something for everyone  further down the roster. Artists performing in jazz, electronic, reggae, indie, rap, and many more genres promise to offer equally exciting sets. Check out 10 buzzing artists who may be in small print, but are sure to make a big impact this year.

Jupiter & Okwess

Kick off Coachella with sounds from Africa, brought to you by Jupiter & Okwess. Hailing from Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Jupiter Bokondji and his band Okwess will bring the sound he’s delineated as "Bofenia Rock" to the festival on Friday.

"Bofenia" refers to a dance Bokondji’s grandmother performed in healing ceremonies in the DRC. However, in recent years, he has demonstrated a commitment to integrating music of different cultures into his repertoire. In 2022 Jupiter & Okwess shared two EPs entitled Brazil is my land and Mexico is my land, respectively, wherein artists from those nations remixed music from the most recent Jupiter & Okwess album, 2021’s Na Kozonga. 

With such a diverse catalog, there’s no telling where in the world this set will take the people of Coachella.

Yves Tumor

With his latest album, Praise A Lord Who Chews But Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds), still hot off the presses, Yves Tumor is coming back to Coachella several lines higher than his last appearance in 2019.

On this new LP, the Warp Records mainstay continues his foray into the alternative. "Ebony Eye" is an exploration in grand soul with an orchestral break laid against vocal tones of longing. "Meteora Blues" goes into alt-rock with the kind of emotional highs and lows that match the reference to Linkin Park’s sophomore album.

Yves Tumor held an overlapping time slot with headliner Childish Gambino in 2019, reserving his set for the heads who gravitate away from the main stage. This year, he’ll likely have a more coveted and, hopefully, less conflicting, set time. 

EARTHGANG

2022 was massive for the Atlanta-based rap duo EARTHGANG: They released their second album, GHETTO GODS, went out on a 30-plus date North American tour, and were set to tour Europe. Their Euro tour was postponed to 2023 — but for good reason. 

The group was "bit by the creative bug," and they will have "new energy" when they’re back on the road. Coachella's desert crowd will get the first taste of this "new energy," and hopefully some new material, before EARTHGANG heads to Europe with JID this summer. 

The Comet Is Coming

After being booked on Coachella’s doomed 2020 lineup, modern jazz trio The Comet Is Coming are locked in for their debut performance. Like previous jazz acts that had space at the mainstream mecca — among them, electro-swing purveyor Parov Stelar and the hip-hop heavy trio BADBADNOTGOOD —  TCIC showcase a new age understanding of jazz. 

The three members all play specific instruments, but their titles in the band are expanded to an existential scale: Betamax the intuitionist, Shabaka the spiritual riffologist, Danalogue the studio magician. These unconventional titles feed the sound of their 2022 LP, Hyper-Dimensional Expansion Beam. Songs like "ANGEL OF DARKNESS" feature the instrumental elements for which jazz is known, but are presented over experimental soundscapes like choral cacophonies.

Whyte Fang

Coachella has long been the place for debuts. Daft Punk debuted their now-famous pyramid show in 2006; Richie Hawtin did the first-ever CLOSE show in 2017; Swedish House Mafia made their return to the festival stage after a five-year hiatus at Coachella 2022. In 2023, Alison Wonderland will make her festival debut as Whyte Fang.

Though Alison Wonderland (real name Alexandra Sholler) has performed as Whyte Fang twice before, her Coachella set will be the first with full-fledged festival production. The Coachella show will coincide with the release of the project’s debut album, Genesis, out on the Friday of weekend one.

Sholler’s music as Alison Wonderland is intricate in nature given her experience as a singer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist. Whyte Fang channels her widespread talent and takes it into a darker presentation. Such a shift can be heard on the album’s singles like the title track, which combines haunting pop vocals with a ghostly deep techno drop. 

2manydjs

After rocking the house with their hybrid live-electronic band Soulwax in 2018, David and Stephen Dewaele return to Coachella as their brothers-only project, 2manydjs.

As 2manydjs, despite the on-the-nose name, the Dewaeles will not perform a traditional DJ set. They have a live show that integrates a carefully crafted journey largely consisting of their lauded remixes of celebrated artists. In 2022 alone they remixed tracks from artists including Oliver Sim, Wet Leg, and Peggy Gou into funky electro hitters primed for aCoachella set.

And those who want to see the brothers go into pure DJing can visit Despacio at Coachella all weekend long. Despacio is the custom sound system they designed with James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem. 

Ethel Cain

Hayden Silas Anhedönia has been telling the story of her alter-ego since 2019. Ethel Cain is a version of herself that represents emotions towards her restrictive Southern upbringing, and Ethel's story was first outlined on  the singer/songwriter's 2022 debut album, Preacher’s Daughter.

The enthralling record employed diverse soundscapes to its relatable and utterly dark subject matter. Songs like "American Teenager" paired adolescent dread with indie-rock guitar chords, while "August Underground" is a full-fledged ambient composition. Though it has no words, the grueling sounds of the latter are meant to represent the emotions surrounding Ethel’s murder at the hands of her lover.

How Anhedönia will bring such a harrowing tale to life at Coachella will surely be a sight to behold.

Snail Mail

Lindsey Jordan, who writes and performs under the name Snail Mail, was another artist set to make her return to Coachella in 2020 before…well, you know. 

That performance was to be ahead of her 2021 sophomore album Valentine. Since touring has reopened, Jordan has taken her new batch of songs all over the world, performing 102 shows in 2022 alone.

In 2023 she is bringing songs like the indie power ballad "Valentine" and the heavy beats of "Ben Franklin" to Indio. 

Elyanna

This year Coachella is standing up for diversity. All three headliners are minorities with the first-ever headlining slot from both a Latin artist (Bad Bunny) and an AAPI artist (BLACKPINK). This year’s lineup also includes Elyanna, who will be the first artist in the history of Coachella to perform her set in Arabic.

The Palestinian-Chilean artist released her second EP, Elyanna 2, in March of 2022. Across the seven tracks, she visits various different sounds in the popular music sphere; opener "Ghareeb Alay" is a lowdown reggae tune, while the piano ballad "Al Kawn Janni Maak" sees her voice soar to the sky. 

Coachella lineups have the power to predicate listening trends. Perhaps this booking will lead to wider acceptance of Arabic artists on mainstream stages in years to come.

DJ Pee Wee

On Anderson .Paak’s Instagram account, his bio now reads: "Moving my talents towards Dj & film!" Attendees during the first weekend of Coachella will have a chance to enjoy .Paak’s DJ talents at the Heineken House, where he will spin an all-vinyl set as DJ Pee Wee.

Across his solo albums and his GRAMMY-winning work with Bruno Mars as Silk Sonic, .Paak has demonstrated his mastery of funk, soul, hip hop, and various other genres, all of which he will likely combine in his DJ set.  (Given .Paak will be on site, it’s also likely he will make a guest appearance with his collaborators and label signees, DOMi & JD Beck, during their set on Friday.

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It's rare that a genre can be traced back to a single artist or group, but for funk, that was James Brown. The Godfather of Soul coined the phrase and style of playing known as "on the one," where the first downbeat is emphasized, instead of the typical second and fourth beats in pop, soul and other styles. As David Cheal eloquently explains, playing on the one "left space for phrases and riffs, often syncopated around the beat, creating an intricate, interlocking grid which could go on and on." You know a funky bassline when you hear it; its fat chords beg your body to get up and groove.

Brown's 1965 classic, "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag," became one of the first funk hits, and has been endlessly sampled and covered over the years, along with his other groovy tracks. Of course, many other funk acts followed in the '60s, and the genre thrived in the '70s and '80s as the disco craze came and went, and the originators of hip-hop and house music created new music from funk and disco's strong, flexible bones built for dancing.

Legendary funk bassist Bootsy Collins learned the power of the one from playing in Brown's band, and brought it to George Clinton, who created P-funk, an expansive, Afrofuturistic, psychedelic exploration of funk with his various bands and projects, including Parliament-Funkadelic. Both Collins and Clinton remain active and funkin', and have offered their timeless grooves to collabs with younger artists, including Kali Uchis, Silk Sonic, and Omar Apollo; and Kendrick Lamar, Flying Lotus, and Thundercat, respectively.

In the 1980s, electro-funk was born when artists like Afrika Bambaataa, Man Parrish, and Egyptian Lover began making futuristic beats with the Roland TR-808 drum machine — often with robotic vocals distorted through a talk box. A key distinguishing factor of electro-funk is a de-emphasis on vocals, with more phrases than choruses and verses. The sound influenced contemporaneous hip-hop, funk and electronica, along with acts around the globe, while current acts like Chromeo, DJ Stingray, and even Egyptian Lover himself keep electro-funk alive and well.

Today, funk lives in many places, with its heavy bass and syncopated grooves finding way into many nooks and crannies of music. There's nu-disco and boogie funk, nodding back to disco bands with soaring vocals and dance floor-designed instrumentation. G-funk continues to influence Los Angeles hip-hop, with innovative artists like Dam-Funk and Channel Tres bringing the funk and G-funk, into electro territory. Funk and disco-centered '70s revival is definitely having a moment, with acts like Ghost Funk Orchestra and Parcels, while its sparkly sprinklings can be heard in pop from Dua Lipa, Doja Cat, and, in full "Soul Train" character, Silk Sonic. There are also acts making dreamy, atmospheric music with a solid dose of funk, such as Khruangbin’s global sonic collage.

There are many bands that play heavily with funk, creating lush grooves designed to get you moving. Read on for a taste of five current modern funk and nu-disco artists making band-led uptempo funk built for the dance floor. Be sure to press play on the Spotify playlist above, and check out GRAMMY.com's playlist on Apple Music, Amazon Music and Pandora.

Say She She

Aptly self-described as "discodelic soul," Brooklyn-based seven-piece Say She She make dreamy, operatic funk, led by singer-songwriters Nya Gazelle Brown, Piya Malik and Sabrina Mileo Cunningham. Their '70s girl group-inspired vocal harmonies echo, sooth and enchant as they cover poignant topics with feminist flair.

While they’ve been active in the New York scene for a few years, they’ve gained wider acclaim for the irresistible music they began releasing this year, including their debut album, Prism. Their 2022 debut single "Forget Me Not" is an ode to ground-breaking New York art collective Guerilla Girls, and "Norma" is their protest anthem in response to the news that Roe vs. Wade could be (and was) overturned. The band name is a nod to funk legend Nile Rodgers, from the "Le freak, c'est chi" exclamation in Chic's legendary tune "Le Freak."

Moniquea

Moniquea's unique voice oozes confidence, yet invites you in to dance with her to the super funky boogie rhythms. The Pasadena, California artist was raised on funk music; her mom was in a cover band that would play classics like Aretha Franklin’s "Get It Right" and Gladys Knight’s "Love Overboard." Moniquea released her first boogie funk track at 20 and, in 2011, met local producer XL Middelton — a bonafide purveyor of funk. She's been a star artist on his MoFunk Records ever since, and they've collabed on countless tracks, channeling West Coast energy with a heavy dose of G-funk, sunny lyrics and upbeat, roller disco-ready rhythms.

Her latest release is an upbeat nod to classic West Coast funk, produced by Middleton, and follows her February 2022 groovy, collab-filled album, On Repeat.

Shiro Schwarz

Shiro Schwarz is a Mexico City-based duo, consisting of Pammela Rojas and Rafael Marfil, who helped establish a modern funk scene in the richly creative Mexican metropolis. On "Electrify" — originally released in 2016 on Fat Beats Records and reissued in 2021 by MoFunk — Shiro Schwarz's vocals playfully contrast each other, floating over an insistent, upbeat bassline and an '80s throwback electro-funk rhythm with synth flourishes.

Their music manages to be both nostalgic and futuristic — and impossible to sit still to. 2021 single "Be Kind" is sweet, mellow and groovy, perfect chic lounge funk. Shiro Schwarz’s latest track, the joyfully nostalgic "Hey DJ," is a collab with funkstress Saucy Lady and U-Key.

L'Impératrice

L'Impératrice (the empress in French) are a six-piece Parisian group serving an infectiously joyful blend of French pop, nu-disco, funk and psychedelia. Flore Benguigui's vocals are light and dreamy, yet commanding of your attention, while lyrics have a feminist touch.

During their energetic live sets, L'Impératrice members Charles de Boisseguin and Hagni Gwon (keys), David Gaugué (bass), Achille Trocellier (guitar), and Tom Daveau (drums) deliver extended instrumental jam sessions to expand and connect their music. Gaugué emphasizes the thick funky bass, and Benguigui jumps around the stage while sounding like an angel. L’Impératrice’s latest album, 2021’s Tako Tsubo, is a sunny, playful French disco journey.

Franc Moody

Franc Moody's bio fittingly describes their music as "a soul funk and cosmic disco sound." The London outfit was birthed by friends Ned Franc and Jon Moody in the early 2010s, when they were living together and throwing parties in North London's warehouse scene. In 2017, the group grew to six members, including singer and multi-instrumentalist Amber-Simone.

Their music feels at home with other electro-pop bands like fellow Londoners Jungle and Aussie act Parcels. While much of it is upbeat and euphoric, Franc Moody also dips into the more chilled, dreamy realm, such as the vibey, sultry title track from their recently released Into the Ether.

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