There is perhaps no sound that defines disco better than Donna Summer's hypnotic "I Feel Love." Indeed, the 45-year-old track was crowned the greatest dance song of all time earlier this year by Rolling Stone. Amidst the 2020s’ ongoing disco resurgence — from Kylie Minogue’s Disco to Beyoncé’s Renaissance, which features a prominent re-interpretation of "I Feel Love" — Donna Summer’s legacy looms larger than ever over pop music.

With five GRAMMY Awards and 18 nominations, Summer still holds the distinction of being the only artist to win awards in four different genres: dance, gospel, rock, and R&B. Though her catalog spans decades and features reinvention after reinvention, her golden period was undoubtedly the 1970s. She took that decade by storm with a string of seven classic disco albums — nearly entirely written and produced by Summer and European collaborators Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte — that culminated in 1979's No.1 compilation album On the Radio: Greatest Hits Volumes I & II. This compilation includes some of the genre’s most sublime and quintessential songs such as "Bad Girls," "On The Radio" and "MacArthur Park," all of which distill disco’s sense of humor, camp, and its otherworldly sound.

But the indisputable queen of disco is too often maligned to the margins of pop’s overall evolution — a consequence of the historic disregard for disco as an art form, though it defined the many branches of dance music that evolved in its wake. As disco’s greatest champion, Summer redefined what it meant to be a "pop star" in a post-Motown world. Summer’s artistry is emblematic of the way sound and aesthetic evolve and compound over time.

In celebration of Summer’s continued legacy, GRAMMY.com dives into how Donna Summer’s 1970s oeuvre changed music and pop stardom forever.

Donna, The Vixen

Donna Summer’s catalog displays a fascination with the ideas of femininity and desire. At a time where women in music culture were largely categorized as matrons, muses, or groupies, Summer’s music thematically centered women as complex and thrilling protagonists.

Her first internationally released album and her first foray into disco, Love to Love You Baby, features Summer moaning her way across the title track for 16+ minutes of utter sexuality. Summer herself came up with the idea for the song’s content, after producer Giorgio Moroder played her the instrumental and asked her to improvise. Her off-the-cuff response happened to become one of the most iconic hooks of all time. Embracing and simulating female orgasm — to this day a taboo topic in pop culture — was how Donna Summer introduced herself to the world, earning her the honorific of the "first lady of love." 

Summer’s 1976 follow-up album, A Love Trilogy, was also her most outwardly yearning, with her cover of Barry Manilow’s "Could It Be Magic" serving as her second-best moan-filled song. Lyrically sparse, it features some of her most direct and simple sexual pleas, letting Moroder and Bellotte’s lush production do a lot of the talking and cemented Summer's status as a mystical sex goddess of disco.

Her exploration of femininity reached its creative apex with 1979's Bad Girls, often considered the quintessential Donna Summer album. It’s a portrait of a fully-fledged pop star with a cohesive vision, and is perhaps the peak of Summer’s comprehensive artistry.

One of many Summer concept albums, Bad Girls is a narrative told from the perspective of a "lady of the night" making her way through the streets of Hollywood. The album, and its title track in particular, was inspired by Summer’s observation of a record company employee being harassed by police for seeming like a street walker. It’s an ode to girls just trying to survive in a world that vilifies sexuality, and much of Summer’s career aimed to reclaim femininity and sexuality from a place of agency and power. To do so, Bad Girls leans into rock, letting go of the paradisiacal strings of disco’s past in favor of more hard-edged, synth and guitar-led sounds that lent well to the grounded subject matter. 

Summer meticulously cultivated the album's visual identity, working with legendary photographer Harry Langdon Jr. to create album artwork that furthered the music’s story. Langdon describes the shoot as Summer’s own brainchild, creating an entire narrative from the imagery, with Summer as the "fallen woman." The result was a prototype of the pop star "era" of today, with visuals defining the album cycle and vice versa. It served as a shift in the creative control of women in pop, as Summer refused to let behind-the-scenes men wholly shape her artistry and expression. She instead centered her own synthesis of the world, expressing it through new personas, performances, and concepts with every new album.

"Bad Girls" also doubles as a tongue-in-cheek take on the prostitutive and isolating nature of pop stardom. Accosted yet desirable, dangerous yet captivating, the Bad Girl in question doubles for the so-called social danger attributed to the inherently liberatory nature of disco and to its primarily Black, female, and LGBT stars. Albums like Britney Spears’ Blackout have continued this thread of examining the price of fame through the lens of sexuality, exploitation, and the pop star as a commodity.

Donna, The Innovator

One of the greatest things Donna Summer ever did for disco was to usher in its evolution and encourage its sonic expansion. Summer drove rock and disco straight into each other — retaining the choral elements, danceable drum beat, and synth hook more commonly associated with disco, while mixing in a guitar break and a heavy bass line. She was a chief architect in moving the dreamier, string-led sounds of disco into the future of synth-led dance music. Following in the legacy of Black funk rockers like Labelle and Betty Davis, 1979's "Hot Stuff" loudly and proudly eschews the romantic desperation that was a staple of pop divadom in favor of straight-up demands, with an emphatic choir to back Summer’s insistence up. The song won the very first GRAMMY Award for Best Female Rock Performance in 1980.

Featuring Doobie Brother/Steely Dan member Jeff Baxter on guitar, "Hot Stuff" set the stage for the upcoming 1980s as a golden decade for women in rock, and particularly for Black women. Its influence can be heard on pop-rock classics like Janet Jackson's "Black Cat" and Tina Turner's "I Might Have Been Queen." 

Like rock, another art form which Donna Summer innovated and elevated is the concept album — a highly lauded production often attributed solely to men in classic rock. The music canon, however, is full of savvy pop concept albums by women, to which Summer has contributed several bodies of work. Among her greatest contributions are Four Seasons of Love and Once Upon A Time....

Four Seasons of Love chronicles the life cycle of a romance in parallel with the seasons in an ode to the theatrically tempestuous nature of love. It follows the rush of a new fling ("Spring Affair") evolving into the fervor of passion ("Summer Fever") before fizzling out amidst desperate attempts to sustain it ("Autumn Changes"), eventually dying out ("Winter Melody") — giving way to another hopeful new affair ("Spring Reprise"). Summer exercises her chameleonic vocal tone to express the dizziness, intensity, desperation, listlessness, and finally hopefulness of each of the album’s stages. DJ Jesse Saunders, the creator of the very first house music record ever sold, cites "Spring Affair" as the song that "changed [his] whole idea of music" and inspired his desire to create.

Once Upon A Time…, Summer’s take on Cinderella, stands as one of the greatest concept albums of all time. A fully-fleshed fairy tale, it features some of the all-time most elegant and seamless transitions between songs (Beyoncé’s Renaissance took notes!). It’s an atmospheric production thematically split into four distinct storybook acts — isolation, despair, yearning and hopefulness — to form a transcendent disco opera. Standouts include the ethereal choir-inflected "Now I Need You," the cold and futuristic "Working the Midnight Shift," and the empowering turning point of "If You Got It Flaunt It." Summer is an absolute chameleon through the song cycle, using her vocal dexterity to master a wild variety of sounds and moods and showing off her studious knowledge of a wide berth of musical styles.

Donna, The Historian

Disco is a melting pot of decades of Black music, with soul, funk and pop all coalescing into a very sexy gumbo. Many of Summer’s greatest songs lean into this contextualization of genre and evolution, such as those on the aforementioned Once Upon A Time… and beginning with 1975’s "Need-A-Man Blues." Rather than merely fixating on what was next in music — as many tried to do in order to ensure their relevance — Donna Summer was keen on honoring her influences as a key part of her musical palate. She was a true student of her idols, unwilling to separate herself from the art that shaped her.

One of her first explicitly disco songs, "Need-A-Man-Blues" features a rhythm emblematic of Sly and the Family Stone's iconic "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)," Stax Records-esque psychedelic soul instrumentals, and Diana Ross-inspired breathy vocals, while Moroder and Bellotte's unique brand of Euro disco fizz ties it all together. It's one of Summer's many songs that dynamically pull the past into the future.

Summer’s tendency for cultural historicism hit its peak in her 1977 concept album I Remember Yesterday, which reflected on the history of pop music before predicting its future. The title track evokes the optimistic swing of the 1940s, followed by the ‘60’s Wall of Sound-inspired soda shop pep of "Love’s Unkind," "Back In Love Again’s" tribute to Diana Ross’ Motown stylings, and odes to the ‘70s innovations of funk and orchestral Philadelphia soul with "Black Lady" and "Take Me," respectively.

The album concludes with the ever-futuristic and eternally relevant "I Feel Love," making I Remember Yesterday an unparalleled chronicle of pop music. "I Feel Love" both foresaw and engineered the next 45 years of dance music, as a major influence for new wave, post-disco, synthpop, and a great number of other subgenres that would go on to define the pop music landscape.

As the ‘70s ended and disco "died," Donna Summer was nowhere near finished. She went on to release 10 more albums, including She Works Hard for the Money, and its title track became one of her most defining hits. Donna Summer never stopped experimenting and creating, though she never reached the commercial or critical acclaim as her ‘70s body of work. And between Madonna’s sexual liberation, Janet Jackson’s social justice-inflected concept albums, Beyoncé’s music historian tendencies, and Lady Gaga’s penchant for dance-pop as an artistic spectacle, it’s clear that over the last five decades, our favorite pop artists have all loved to love Donna Summer’s musical blueprint.

Artists Who Define Afrofuturism In Music: Sun Ra, Flying Lotus, Janelle Monae, Shabaka Hutchings & More

The Recording Academy has announced 10 recordings to be newly inducted to the distinguished GRAMMY Hall Of Fame as part of its 2024 inductee class and in celebration of its 50th anniversary this year. This year's GRAMMY Hall of Fame additions, the first inductions since 2021, include four albums and six singles that exhibit qualitative or historical significance and are at least 25 years old. The inducted recordings, which will be added to the iconic catalog residing at the GRAMMY Museum, will be honored at GRAMMY Museum's inaugural GRAMMY Hall Of Fame Gala and concert, presented by City National Bank, taking place Tuesday, May 21, at the NOVO Theater in Los Angeles. Tickets for and performers at the Gala will be announced at a later date. 

The 2024 GRAMMY Hall Of Fame inducted recordings range from Lauryn Hill's The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill to Guns N' Roses' Appetite For Destruction. Others include recordings by De La Soul, Buena Vista Social Club, Donna Summer, Charley Pride, Wanda Jackson, Kid Ory's Creole Orchestra, the Doobie Brothers, and William Bell. Eligible recipients will receive an official certificate from the Recording Academy. With these 10 newly inducted titles, the GRAMMY Hall Of Fame currently totals 1,152 inducted recordings.

See below for a full list of the 2024 recordings inducted into the GRAMMY Hall Of Fame, and see the full list of all past GRAMMY Hall Of Fame inducted recordings.

Full list of 2024 GRAMMY Hall Of Fame Inducted Recordings:

3 FEET HIGH AND RISING
De La Soul
Tommy Boy (1989)
(Album)
Inducted: 2024

APPETITE FOR DESTRUCTION
Guns N' Roses
Geffen (1987)
(Album)
Inducted: 2024

BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB
Buena Vista Social Club
World Circuit/Nonesuch (1997)
(Album)
Inducted: 2024

“I FEEL LOVE”
Donna Summer
Casablanca (1977)
(Single)
Inducted: 2024

“KISS AN ANGEL GOOD MORNIN'“
Charley Pride
RCA Victor (1971)
(Single)
Inducted: 2024

“LET'S HAVE A PARTY”
Wanda Jackson
Capitol (1960)
(Single)
Inducted: 2024

THE MISEDUCATION OF LAURYN HILL
Lauryn Hill
Ruffhouse/Columbia (1998)
(Album)
Inducted: 2024

“ORY'S CREOLE TROMBONE”
Kid Ory's Creole Orchestra (As Spike's Seven Pods of Pepper Orchestra)
Nordskog (1922)
(Single)
2024

“WHAT A FOOL BELIEVES”
The Doobie Brothers
Warner Bros. (1978)
(Single)
Inducted: 2024

“YOU DON'T MISS YOUR WATER”
William Bell
Stax (1961)
(Single)
Inducted: 2024

"We're proud to unveil the diverse mix of recordings entering the GRAMMY Hall Of Fame in its 50th year," Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason jr. said in a statement. "The music showcased here has played a pivotal role in shaping our cultural landscape, and it's a true honor to recognize these albums and recordings, along with the profound influence each has had on music and beyond."

"The artists, songwriters, producers, and engineers who composed this year's inducted recordings are a reflection of the sheer talent and hard work that goes into creating such seminal music," GRAMMY Museum President/CEO Michael Sticka said in a statement. "It's a privilege to be able to welcome these new additions into our distinguished catalog and celebrate the recordings at our inaugural gala on May 21."

The GRAMMY Hall Of Fame was established by the Recording Academy's National Trustees in 1973. The inducted recordings are selected annually by a special member committee of eminent and knowledgeable professionals from all branches of the recording arts with final ratification by the Recording Academy's National Board of Trustees.

This year, the GRAMMY Hall Of Fame Gala will be the first of what will become an annual event and includes a red carpet and VIP reception on the newly opened Ray Charles Terrace at the GRAMMY Museum, followed by a one-of-a-kind concert at the NOVO Theater in downtown Los Angeles. 

The inaugural gala and concert is produced by longtime executive producer of the GRAMMY Awards, Ken Ehrlich, along with Chantel Sausedo and Ron Basile and will feature musical direction by globally renowned producer and keyboardist Greg Phillinganes. For sponsorship opportunities, reach out to halloffame@grammymuseum.org.

Explore the history of the GRAMMY Hall Of Fame

This year, the Special Merit Awards ceremony was not for the faint of heart. 

The 2024 GRAMMY Week event, held Saturday at a capacity Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Los Angeles, presented Lifetime Achievement Awards, Trustees Awards, the Technical GRAMMY,  and the Music Educator Award to a dazzling gallery of musical innovators whose work has generated deep emotional connections across decades. In a world currently ensnared in a pattern of global conflict, the presentation of the award for Best Song for Social Change for the first time at the Special Merit Award ceremony this year added an extra layer of poignancy.

The presentation was touching from the very beginning, with a video montage of previous winners set to the historic recording of Aretha Franklin singing the Puccini aria "Nessuna Dorma." Glimpses of many legendary faces and performances on the screen underscored the Academy’s empathy for impactful music history: from Marvin Gaye to Janis Joplin; Billie Holiday to The Carter Family; The Beatles and Tina Turner to Dolly Parton and The Supremes.

The 2024 Music Educator Award was then given to Annie Ray, a music teacher and orchestra leader from Annandale, Virginia selected for her relentless positivity and inclusive energy. "Orchestra is much more than a class — it’s a family," said one of her students during a brief video chronicling her work. Ray, whose classrooms include students from 66 different countries — put together, they speak 59 languages — was visibly touched as she received the award. "I am thankful to share with the world what my students have taught me," she said.

The year’s Technical GRAMMY belonged to Tom Scott and the late Tom Kobayashi, who met at Lucasfilm’s Skywalker Sound in 1985 and together launched the Entertainment Digital Network (EDnet), which allows the sharing of high-quality video and audio. An estimated 250,000 musical collaborations have been facilitated by their innovations, including many GRAMMY performances. 

Next up were the three Trustee Awards: British pop legend Peter Asher, member of Peter & Gordon, prolific A&R executive, producer, manager, and a self-professed "admirer and member of the Recording Academy for almost 60 years"; legendary entertainment attorney and former Recording Academy Chairman Joel Katz, known as "the dealmaker who thinks outside of the box"; and Jamaican American DJ Kool Herc, renowned as one of the founders of East Coast hip-hop in ‘70s. He received the award joined by his sister Cindy who promoted his initial series of parties in the Bronx, noted for his groundbreaking use of two turntables and the extension of funky breaks in songs. 

It was time to honor the Lifetime Achievement recipients, and a sprightly Laurie Anderson stepped onstage and gave a witty assessment of her reputation as an uncompromising song alchemist. "They say my music is experimental, which sounds like doing something in the lab that might explode," she said. From her wonderfully robotic, left-field 1982 hit "O Superman" to her poetic concept album Homeland in 2010, Anderson has created her share of aesthetically explosive works of the art-pop and avant-garde variety.

"I love music so much, and I married a musician," she said acknowledging her husband, the late Lou Reed. "Wouldn’t it be great if there was a piano on every corner?"

The best-selling female gospel group in history, Detroit-based The Clark Sisters are known for their soaring vocal harmonies and powerhouse hits like "You Brought The Sunshine." 

"We thank our Lord and Savior for allowing us to do what we do: singing," they said, adding words of gratitude for their mother — "the lady who paved the way" — the late choral director Dr. Mattie Moss Clark.

The importance of a rich spiritual life was also emphasized by Motown legend and Soul empress Gladys Knight. The singer known for classic hits such as "Midnight Train to Georgia" and a raucous rendition of "I Heard It Through The Grapevine" beamed onstage as she recalled her beginnings in music, before she became an international star with The Pips. "We had to go to church every Sunday, and it did make a difference," she said. "Everybody was singing around me when I grew up. And my mom would never allow me to do it easy. It had to come from the heart."

It was time to witness the strength of street knowledge. Delving into the very core of hip-hop identity, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony presented the Lifetime Achievement Award to N.W.A, the revolutionary Los Angeles collective that transformed the landscape of popular music with its 1988 debut Straight Outta Compton. The group was joined by the mother and son of late rapper Eazy-E, who passed away in 1995 at age 30. The surviving members of the group – excepting Dr. Dre, who was celebrating his daughter’s birthday and sent a text greeting – looked vindicated. "We always knew that a GRAMMY was not in the cards for us, but we still wanted to express ourselves," said Ice Cube. "When you do your thing, the world will come to you."

Donna Summer, the ethereal and visionary singer who took disco music into progressive territory during the ‘70s, passed away in 2012. The "I Feel Love" star received a posthumous Lifetime Achievement Award on Saturday — and her husband Bruce Sudano and their three daughters were there to collect it. "Her voice and music are omnipresent in the [cultural] zeitgeist," said Sudano. "Donna continues to inspire people worldwide. She always referred to herself as an ordinary girl."

Last but not least, GRAMMY winning country star Tammy Wynette, who died in 1998, was also honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award — accepted by her daughters, Georgette Jones and Jackie Daly.

"Mom would feel very humbled to be in such a talented group of people," Jones said. "She always thought that the GRAMMYs were the biggest accomplishment in music. And she never fully understood her own impact."

When rapper and singer K’naan was a child in Mogadishu, his mother managed to get the family out of Somalia on the last commercial flight before the civil war erupted. Together with songwriters Gerald Eaton and Steve McEwan, K’naan was honored with the Best Song for Social Change award for "Refugee," a track about the plight of political refugees around the world.

"In the Somali language, the word 'home' derives from the word 'mother,'" explained K’naan as he received the award to a standing ovation. "I dedicate this GRAMMY to my home — my mother."

2024 GRAMMY Nominations: See The Full Winners & Nominees List

Ahead of the 2024 GRAMMYs, the Recording Academy has announced the 2024 Special Merit Awards honorees.

Laurie Anderson, the Clark Sisters, Gladys Knight, N.W.A, Donna Summer, and Tammy Wynette are the 2024 Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Award honorees; Peter Asher, DJ Kool Herc and Joel Katz are the Trustees Award recipients; Tom Kobayashi and Tom Scott are the Technical GRAMMY Award honorees; and “Refugee,” written by K’naan, Steve McEwan, and Gerald Eaton (a.k.a. Jarvis Church), is being honored with the Best Song For Social Change Award. 

The Recording Academy’s Special Merit Awards Ceremony celebrating the 2023 Special Merit Award recipients will return to the Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Los Angeles on Saturday, Feb. 3. 

“The Academy is honored to pay tribute to this year’s Special Merit Award recipients — a remarkable group of creators and industry professionals whose impact resonates with generations worldwide,” said Harvey Mason jr., CEO of the Recording Academy. “Their contributions to music span genres, backgrounds and crafts, reflecting the rich diversity that fuels our creative community. We look forward to honoring these music industry trailblazers next month as part of our week-long celebration leading up to Music’s Biggest Night.”

Lifetime Achievement Award Honorees

This Special Merit Award is presented by vote of the Recording Academy’s National Trustees to performers who, during their lifetimes, have made creative contributions of outstanding artistic significance to the field of recording (through 1972, recipients included non-performers).

Laurie Anderson is a writer, director, composer, visual artist, musician, and vocalist who has created groundbreaking works that span the worlds of art, theater, experimental music, and technology. As a performer and musician, she has collaborated with many people including Brian Eno, Jean-Michel Jarre, William S. Burroughs, Peter Gabriel, Robert Wilson, Christian McBride, and Philip Glass. In 2002, Anderson was appointed the first artist-in-residence of NASA which culminated in her 2004 touring solo performance, The End of the Moon. She has been nominated for six GRAMMY Awards throughout her recording career and received a GRAMMY for the release Landfall in collaboration with the Kronos Quartet at the 61st GRAMMYs. 

The Clark Sisters, an American gospel vocal group initially consisting of five sisters: Jacky, Denise, Elbernita, Dorinda, and Karen – have been taking the world by storm since the early 1980s. Credited for helping to bring gospel music to the mainstream, the Clark Sisters are considered pioneers of contemporary gospel. Their biggest crossover hits include: “Is My Living in Vain?,” “Hallelujah,” “He Gave Me Nothing to Lose,” “Endow Me,” their hit song “Jesus Is A Love Song,” “Pure Gold,” “Miracle,” and their largest, mainstream crossover gold-certified, “You Brought The Sunshine.” The Clark Sisters (Jacky, Elbernita, Dorinda, and Karen) have won three GRAMMYs (two awarded to the group, and one to Karen as a songwriter for “Blessed and Highly Favored”), and with 16 albums to their credit and millions in sales, they are the highest-selling female gospel group in history.

Gladys Knight is a seven-time GRAMMY Award winner who has enjoyed No. 1 hits in pop, gospel, R&B, and adult contemporary, and has triumphed in film, television and live performance. Knight has recorded more than 38 albums over the years including four solo albums. She appeared on ABC’s 14th season of “Dancing With The Stars” in 2012, and in 2019, she competed on the inaugural season of “The Masked Singer.” Knight has sung the National Anthem at several major sporting events, including at Super Bowl LIII in Atlanta in 2019, and at the 2021 NBA All-Star Game. She was a National Endowment for the Arts 2021 National Medal of Arts Recipient and received a Kennedy Center Honor for Lifetime Artistic Achievements in 2022.

N.W.A was a rap group from the Compton district in Los Angeles who are credited by many with inventing gangsta rap. The group, consisting of Eazy-E^, Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, DJ Yella, and MC-Ren, developed a new sound, which brought in many of the loud, extreme sonic innovations of Public Enemy while adopting a self-consciously violent and dangerous lyrical stance. In 1988, N.W.A released their album, Straight Outta Compton, a brutally intense record that became an underground hit without any support from radio or MTV. This negative attention worked in their favor as it brought the album to multiplatinum status. Although the group was short-lived, gangsta rap established itself as the most popular form of hip-hop during the mid-1990s.

Donna Summer^ rocketed to international superstardom with her groundbreaking merger of R&B, soul, pop, funk, rock, disco, and avant-garde electronica, catapulting underground dance music out of the clubs of Europe and bringing it to the world. Summer holds the record with three consecutive double albums to hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts (the only solo artist to ever accomplish this), and first female artist to have four No. 1 singles in a 12-month period on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart. A five-time GRAMMY winner and 18-time GRAMMY nominee, Summer was the first artist to win the GRAMMY for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female (1979, “Hot Stuff”) as well as the first-ever recipient of the new GRAMMY Category for Best Dance Recording (1997, “Carry On”). Summer was the first female artist to win GRAMMY Awards in four different genres: dance, gospel, rock, and R&B.

Tammy Wynette^ first hit the musical scene in 1966 with “Apartment #9” after moving to Nashville and teaming up with record producer Billy Sherrill. Together, the duo wrote songs that reflected the yearnings and the things Wynette felt were important in her life. In 1968, Wynette released “Stand By Your Man,” which sold more than five million singles and became the largest-selling single ever recorded by a female artist. By 1970, she racked up five No. 1 country hits, was named the Country Music Association’s Female Vocalist of the Year three times, and won two GRAMMYs. Wynette was the first female country music singer to sell over one million albums and has sold more than 30 million records grossing more than $100 million, earning her the title “The First Lady of Country Music.”

Read More: GRAMMY Lifetime Achievement Awards | The Complete List

Trustees Award Honorees

This Special Merit Award is presented by vote of the Recording Academy’s National Trustees to individuals who, during their careers in music, have made significant contributions, other than performance, to the field of recording (through 1983, recipients included performers).

Peter Asher’s career began in 1964 as one-half of Peter & Gordon, whose “A World Without Love” topped the charts worldwide. Nine more Top 20 hits followed before Asher became head of A&R for the Beatles’ Apple Records in 1968, and discovered, produced and managed James Taylor; later adding Linda Ronstadt, Neil Diamond, 10,000 Maniacs, Cher, Diana Ross, Kenny Loggins, Bonnie Raitt, Robin Williams, Stevie Nicks, Lyle Lovett, Morrissey, Steve Martin & Edie Brickell, Ed Sheeran, and more to his roster. Asher won the GRAMMY for Producer Of The Year in both 1977 and 1989. He hosts a hit radio show “From Me To You” on Sirius XM and is much in demand not only in the studio but as a performer, speaker and author.

The legendary Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee DJ Kool Herc is consistently credited as the founder of hip-hop. His mastery at the turntables is known worldwide, as are his positive contributions to the evolution of hip-hop culture. Herc’s popularity rose by playing long sets of assorted rhythm breaks strung together. Unlike any of his DJ counterparts, Herc is not a rapid rapper who keeps your head spinning with a patter, but he is a musical innovator to the turntables. He first introduced using two turntables to make the beats last longer, creating the illusion of one long break for the B-Boys to show off their skills. Herc has received a great deal of recognition during his lifetime, including his induction into the 2023 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and recognition from the New York Landmarks Conservancy as a 2023 Living Landmark. 

Joel Katz has played a profound role in shaping the entertainment industry through his work in facilitating entertainment-related corporate acquisitions and mergers and consulting multi-national and multi-media entertainment companies. Katz was ranked Billboard magazine’s No. 1 entertainment attorney in its “Power 100” list of most powerful executives in the music business and has been called “the dealmaker who thinks outside the box.” At Kennesaw State University, Katz endowed and began a commercial music program – one of the largest music education programs in America with over 500 students. He has authored and co-authored many articles and commentary on topics concerning entertainment law. In honor of his work, the University of Tennessee College of Law dedicated its library in his name, the Joel A. Katz Law Library.

Read More: GRAMMY Trustees Awards | The Complete List

Technical GRAMMY Award Honorees

This Special Merit Award is presented by vote of the Producers & Engineers Wing Advisory Council and Chapter Committees and ratification by the Recording Academy's National Trustees to individuals and/or companies/organizations/institutions who have made contributions of outstanding technical significance to the recording field. 

Tom Kobayashi^ and Tom Scott met at Lucasfilm’s Skywalker Sound in 1985, when the duo joined the company and completed the building of the Skywalker post-production facilities in both Northern and Southern California. Together, Kobayashi and Scott launched the Entertainment Digital Network, also known as “EDnet,” which employed fiber-optic networks to send high-quality video and audio great distances. Its then-revolutionary technology enabled the industry to link together talent, executives and production facilities at great cost savings. For 25 years, that company connected hundreds of recording studios worldwide in the days before the Internet could handle high-quality audio. EDnet became a part of Onstream Media, and over the decades, tens of thousands of long-distance collaboration sessions were facilitated for the music, advertising, TV, and cinema businesses. 

Best Song For Social Change Award Honorees

This Special Merit Award honors songwriter(s) of message-driven music that speaks to the social issues of our time and has demonstrated and inspired positive global impact. The finalists and recipient(s) are selected annually by a Blue-Ribbon Committee composed of a community of peers dedicated to artistic expression, the craft of songwriting and the power of songs to effect social change. See past recipients here.

In June 2023, singer-songwriter K’naan released the inspiring single and accompanying video “Refugee,” co-written by GRAMMY Award-winning songwriter Steve McEwan and GRAMMY-nominated producer Gerald Eaton (also known by his stage name, Jarvis Church). “Refugee” stands out as a distinctive musical endeavor, skillfully interweaving personal and political narratives, and serving as a tribute to refugees around the world. With the single, K’naan drew inspiration from his personal experiences, aiming to redefine the traditional perception of the term “refugee” into a symbol of resilience and strength. The song was written with the hopes of encouraging individuals to embrace the word “refugee” proudly and to give those made homeless by conflict a song that felt like home.

Read More: GRAMMY Technical Awards | The Complete List

^Denotes posthumous honoree.

2024 GRAMMY Nominations: See The Full Nominees List

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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