Current GRAMMY nominees The National will be returning home to Cincinnati late this April, following a long tour in support of their latest album Sleep Well Beast, for which they hope to win a GRAMMY for Best Alternative Music Album at the 60th GRAMMY Awards on Jan. 28.

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To mark the occasion, The National have planned a special two-day event – aptly titled Homecoming –which will serve as an offshoot of guitarist Bryce Dessner's well established three-day indie/eclectic artist amplification festival MusicNow, occurring over the same weekend.

While MusicNow, much like Austin's annual South By Southwest, will take place "before, during, after, and around Homecoming" at a variety of venues around the city over the course of its three-day run, Homecoming itself will take place all within the confines of Cincinnati's Smale Park. The National will play two unique sets over the two nights of the festival, and they will be supported by fellow 60th GRAMMY nominee Father John Misty, as well as Feist, Future Islands, The Breeders, Lord Huron, Julien Baker, Moses Sumney, Alvvays, and Big Thief, with more performers still to be announced.

Currently on the lineup for MusicNow are Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, Mouse On Mars, Kristín Anna Valtýsdóttir, Crash Ensemble, and Eighth Blackbird, with more announcements forthcoming.

The National's Homecoming festival will take place on Apr. 28-29, with MusicNow kicking off a day earlier on Apr. 27. Ticket information for both events will be announced in early February. More information can be found on the official Homecoming website.

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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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This year marks the 15th anniversary of San Francisco's Outside Lands, and while the festival always boasts the Bay Area's best, the 2023 lineup is especially stacked with incredible female and nonbinary talent. From aespa making K-pop history to La Doña's homecoming, the fest's latest iteration is bound to be badass.

Whether you're planning on shimmying to Janelle Monáe, spitting every Megan Thee Stallion verse, or sobbing to Lana Del Rey, Outside Lands will be bursting with energy and seemingly endless options.

As San Francisco transforms Golden Gate Park into a lavish festival ground for three days, check out these 10 performers ready to electrify the city.

Megan Thee Stallion

Time to get lit like a match. Megan Thee Stallion has been hitting stages across the country this year — from LA Pride to her hometown of Houston for the Men's NCAA Final Four — and there's no doubt she'll bring the heat to Golden Gate Park on Sunday. Though the three-time GRAMMY winner is known for her high-hype, feel-good freestyles, her latest album, Traumazine, opens up about anxiety and the importance of self-care. So whether you're having a hot or healing girl summer, her headlining set will be the spot for festgoers to let loose.

Janelle Monáe

On Friday, Janelle Monáe will usher San Francisco into The Age of Pleasure. Sensuality and freedom flood the singer's most recent album, and for Monáe's headlining show, fans can expect bursting psychedelic soul, pop and hip-hop in an evening full of color and love.

Emphasizing intersectionality and identity (Monáe identifies as nonbinary), her wide-ranging performance will traverse her trailblazing concept albums like GRAMMY-nominated Dirty Computer and The ArchAndroid. Having conquered both the big screen and the stage as a multihyphenate, Monáe's set will be nothing short of a spectacle.

beabadoobee

Hot off supporting Taylor Swift's Eras Tour, beabadoobee is headed to Golden Gate Park on Sunday afternoon. The Filipino-English singer/songwriter has carved out a space for herself between indie rock and bedroom pop, first becoming known for her sweet, spacey falsetto and her sleeper hit "Coffee" in 2020. The indie star has since expanded her worldbuilding abilities rapidly, spinning intricate scenes from her debut Fake It Flowers into her scenic second album Beatopia — similarly, beabadoobee's Outside Lands set will likely flaunt the vitality of her imagination.

Raveena

Raveena is the definition of grace, and her Friday Outside Lands set is sure to swell with serenity. Mindfulness is the objective of the singer's soulful music as she grounds herself through tranquil mixes of R&B and pop. From her 2019 debut Lucid to 2022's Asha's Awakening, her voice epitomizes comfort whether it floats through delicate strings or stony drums. At Golden Gate Park, Raveena will bring momentary, blissful peace to the festival's chaotic fun.

Ethel Cain

Ethel Cain is ready to take concertgoers to church — even on a Friday. The experimental breakout star is known for dissecting dark, Southern Gothic themes in her music, establishing herself as a rising leader in the modern alternative genre (and also in the LGBTQIA+ community, as she is a trans woman). Her debut album Preacher's Daughter only came out last year, but the critically acclaimed album swiftly earned the musician a cult following. After bewitching Coachella audiences back in April, Cain's upcoming Outside Lands set is sure to be compelling.

NIKI

More than 10 years after she wrote her first original song, NIKI is ready to storm the Twin Peaks stage. Her deeply sincere indie pop drifts with bittersweetness, and it's powerful to witness how well the Indonesian singer's intimacy translates to massive crowds.

Signed to label 88rising in 2017, NIKI soon found herself playing concerts for a growing global fan base that resonated with her heart-to-heart songwriting. Ranging from the dramatic depths of her debut album, MOONCHILD, to 2022's earnest self-titled Nicole, NIKI's Outside Lands set will be perfect for listeners who want to escape with their head in the clouds.

Lana Del Rey

Lana Del Rey is the reigning queen of summertime sadness, and she'll be doin' time at Golden Gate Park as one of Saturday's headliners. Known for spinning tales of tragic romance, the GRAMMY-nominated singer/songwriter plans to enchant audiences at Twin Peaks stage following her release of Did You Know There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Boulevard. Her discography haunts and aches, filled with everything from folky gospel to trap pop; if one thing's for sure, Del Rey's highly anticipated performance is bound to be a spiritual journey.

La Doña

Born and raised in San Francisco, La Doña is making her city proud by performing at the Bay's biggest annual music festival. Taking the Lands End stage with her 11-piece band on Friday, the Chicana musician has come a long way since picking up the trumpet at age 7.

Centering around personal identity and community, her music beautifully merges traditional Latin folk with modern cumbia, reggaeton, and hip-hop. La Doña's progressive sound just earned her a spot on Barack Obama's annual summer playlist, and less than a month later, her hometown will get to see what all of the hype is about.

aespa

When aespa takes to Twin Peaks stage Friday, they'll make history as the first K-pop act to ever perform at Outside Lands. Exploding onto the music scene in 2020, the innovative South Korean girl group gives K-pop a fresh edge, distinctively inspired by hyperpop and hip-hop. The group's name combines the words "avatar," "experience," and "aspect," representing their futuristic style that's often embellished by a metaverse aesthetic. Their mind-blowing Coachella and Governors Ball debuts hinted that aespa is ready to pull out all the stops for their Outside Lands crowd.

Maggie Rogers

Maggie Rogers knows how to break free. The 2020 Best New Artist GRAMMY nominee will get the crowd hyped for Saturday headliners Foo Fighters with an enthralling set. Although her debut album Heard It in a Past Life pulses with steady revelations, her alternative follow-up Surrender leans into sweat and desire. As she's proven at many festivals past, Rogers' show will be infused with bright energy, from the slow emotional burn of "Light On" to the exhilarating "Want Want" as the sun goes down.

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One pivotal moment for Aaron Dessner transpired in his attic. Upstairs at his former home in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn, he recorded the heart-exploding horn outro to what might be the National's signature song, "Fake Empire."

"You hear the four-over-three rhythm and the piano, which is kind of confusing," Dessner explained at a recent live Q&A for Recording Academy members at the New York Chapter office. "But then there's a verse, chorus, verse, chorus, and then nothing happens." 

The band sat around, unsure of how to wrap it up — and then it clicked to do a cathartic brass fanfare.

"Fake Empire" ended up being the opening track of 2007's Boxer, their critically acclaimed fourth album that put them on the map. Once Barack Obama used it as his 2008 campaign theme song. "Without the words, with just the music," clarified Dessner. Regardless, "it became a real life-changing moment for us."

Another pivotal moment for Aaron Dessner happened at his kitchen table. "John, you were there, right? When I got the text?" he asked the prodigious engineer Jonathan Low, who's worked with the National for years, seated to his right. It turned out to be Taylor Swift. That text led to Folklore and Evermore. The former won a GRAMMY for Album Of The Year.

This true story of Dessner's ascent to the upper echelon of recordmaking seems slightly unbelievable, if only because he's so bracingly normal. Speaking to the small crowd at the newly established four-story office in Murray Hill, Dessner projected zero egotism as he held forth on his rise from indie darling to unlikely pop impresario.

Speaking to music industry giant Nabil Ayers, the two-time GRAMMY winner began the chronology of the conversation in 2009. That was the year Ayers began his tenure at the label 4AD — he now works with their parent company, Beggars Group — and the National were making High Violet, their follow-up to Boxer.

At that juncture in his career, Dessner and his brother, Bryce, had co-produced and curated Dark Was The Night, a compilation spilling over with indie stars that benefited the Red Hot Organization, a not-for-profit that raises awareness of HIV/AIDS. "We came there with a big, phony million-dollar check for you to give to Red Hot," Ayers noted mirthfully.

In that garage studio behind Dessner's house, Ayers realized he was dealing with a different kind of cat. "Oh, this guy's not just the guitar player in this great rock band," he remembered thinking, "but actually, he's the person who's very closely involved with the recording and making of the records."

Dessner, a born tinkerer, had built that studio with the Boxer money; in some ways, he was at the very beginning of his journey as a recordist. "That's when we met, and that's when I felt like I was a producer in my own…" he said, hesitating on what was probably the word "right." "I didn't know what that meant at the time."

Eager to learn through experience, Dessner forged ahead in that 400-square-foot space, and began recording albums for artists outside of the National: Sharon Van Etten's 2012 album Tramp, released around the time his band was making Trouble Will Find Me, was the first.

At that point, Dessner brought up Low, whose resumé is astounding; it includes a little album called Midnights. (Well, two tracks on the 3am Edition.) The two men met around the turn of the decade, when Dessner entered a Philadelphia studio to record drums on Tramp; Low was working there.

Since then, Low's worked with the National extensively — on 2013's Trouble Will Find Me, on 2017's Sleep Well Beast, on 2019's I Am Easy to Find. "From that day forward, I basically made it my life goal to lure him wherever I went," Dessner said. "Now, I try to not let him go anywhere else."

Dessner's story then took him to the birth of his three children, and the related move to Hudson, New York, where he bought an 18th-century farmhouse and began recording at various studios upstate. This led to his purchase of a barn in Hudson Valley that Dessner converted into Long Pond Studio.

"It's built on the scale of a church, so it's got very high ceilings," Dessner says, praising its cedar treatment and sauna-like smell. "We had to build it really fast, because we had to basically make a National record to pay for it." The result was 2017's Sleep Well Beast; the structure looms on its crepuscular cover.

From there, Dessner's work as a producer for outside artists exploded: he helmed records by Local Natives, the Lone Bellow, Frightened Rabbit and others.

After a decade of gestation, his duo with Bon Iver's Justin Vernon, Big Red Machine, released their self-titled debut album in 2018; the lion's share of it was recorded in the converted barn. (In 2021, they released a follow-up, How Long Do You Think It's Gonna Last? Featuring a litany of guest vocalists, from Swift to Anaïs Mitchell to Fleet Foxes.)

At the New York Chapter office, Swift's presence loomed heavy, and Dessner's gratitude and reverence toward her shone through his expressions. He met her in 2014, when the National played "SNL" and Swift was deep in her 1989 era.

"She was just so lovely and kind and interested and cool, and I could tell she was a fan," Dessner recalls. "That was such a perfect record. It was just this weird meeting of: we were in such different worlds, but it was cool."

Five years later, Swift saw the National perform in Prospect Park; when he and his brother got to talking with her, their collegial friendship deepened. 

"I think she already knew that we write music first," Dessner said, foreshadowing his work on Folklore and Evermore, as well as similarly conceptualized works like Ed Sheeran's upcoming Subtract. "It's what we call sketches, but they're basically fully realized musical ideas that don't have words and vocal melodies, but have a lot of internal melody."

In March 2020, he pressed send on a massive Dropbox folder of those "sketches." Deep into that night, "at 2:00 a.m., my phone buzzed, and it was a voice memo from her," he remembers. "With the song 'Cardigan.'"

After the pair completed Folklore, they simply couldn't stop making songs. "She's a real magic person in the sense that she has such an incisive, acute songwriting ability, and a crazy sense of melody," he said.

The most goosebump-inducing part of "Up Close & Personal with Aaron Dessner" was Dessner's description of how they made the Folklore and Evermore songs remotely — without even management knowing. "Sometimes, I would send Taylor an instrumental, go for a run down to the Hudson River, run back, and there'd be a song."

That uncanny sense of alchemy was unlike anything Dessner had encountered before: he even found himself growing superstitious on those runs. "Occasionally, I would see a snake down at the river, and I would research the snake," he said. "It was a copperhead, that was good luck — so I was looking for the copperhead." Clearly, he remains in awe at the creative arc he co-piloted. 

Dessner then made his way to recording Ed Sheeran's latest, as well as the National's new album, First Two Pages of Frankenstein — out April 28. The experience of making the former, as detailed in Sheeran's recent Rolling Stone cover story, was revelatory.

"He felt disarmed," Dessner said of Sheeran. "He wasn't trying to perfect something that would work commercially, or write the perfect pop statement. [He was] allowing himself to bring to page, and write to — and also be inspired by — someone else's music."

As per First Two Pages of Frankenstein, it wasn't even a given the National would make another record. "[The National singer] Matt Berninger, who lives in LA, had been going through a hard time personally," he admits. "There had been a lot of friction in the band." Still, Swift laid a fascinating prognostication on him.

"She predicted that what would happen after all this was that we would lean into each other and make our best record, because we would have all this perspective," he recalls. At first, the process was slightly awkward and hesitant — and then it rapidly gained steam.

Speaking to GRAMMY.com before the event, Dessner connected this creative flourish to his numberless hours as a studio rat. "When I came back into the band, it was like I had gained a lot of experience," he says. "Almost like I'd been in some sort of accelerated crash course in production and recording."

Dessner is thrilled about how First Two Pages of Frankenstein came out; he frames it as something of an ultimate National album. "You hear all the elements that make the National what it is. The simplicity on the surface, and the complexity and depth behind it… It reveals itself over a lot of listening."

It was enthralling to hear the arc of the guitarist Ayers met in that garage met more than a decade ago; the profundity of that moment made even more exciting by the intimate setting of Dessner's conversation.  First Two Pages of Frankenstein, which features production from Dessner and a Swift vocal turn on "The Alcott," also represents something of a culmination.

"It became very powerful," Dessner expressed that energy during the one-on-one interview. "It feels to me like the beginning of a new chapter." If his entire career up to this point turned out to be a ramp-up, hold on tight.

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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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