The 64th Annual Grammys has everyone on social media still talking... a day later: Who had the best performances, who was snubbed, who should’ve won, what everyone was wearing and everything in-between.
Don’t worry, we’ll make sure you won’t be left out of the chat because here at the Root we’re about to lay out the water cooler moments of the evening. So let’s do this. Before the night even began, people were talking about Ye.
Kanye West is a no-show:
Where was Kanye West? Despite being nominated five times, the controversial star was ghost. He just did not show up for the night.
Silk Sonic opens the show:
As we have already said in The Root, Silk Sonic, the duo comprised of Bruno Mars and Anderson .paak, opened up the Grammys with their performance of “777.” Y’all they brought the casino to the award ceremony with this performance and made everyone feel like they won big at the slot machine. Not to mention, they were also big winners last night, but we’ll get back to that later.
Trevor Noah and others address the Oscars slap:
We then met host Trevor Noah, who also hosted the award ceremony a year ago. All eyes were on him wondering if he would address the now infamous slap heard around social media at the 2022 Oscars.
Earlier that night, during the Grammys premiere ceremony, Lavar Burton said while introducing the presenter for the best comedy album “Our next presenter is a comedian, so I need to warn everyone to remain in your seats and keep your hands to yourself.”
To kick off the night, Noah gave us a preview of what we should expect from a packed Grammy ceremony, “this is a concert where we’re giving out awards” and promised viewers that “we’re gonna be keeping people’s names out of our mouths.”
Referencing Will Smith yelling at Chris Rock to keep his wife’s name out of his mouth.
Questlove, the Oscar winner Rock was getting to present before getting slapped, also made a funny joke about the slap when presenting song of the year, which was also won by Silk Sonic.
He said, “I’m gonna present this award and I trust you people stay 500 feet away from me,” and then added, “Just playing.”
Now back to the performances. Lil Nas X performed some of his hits off of his 2021 album, Montero including won of the biggest (and maybe best) bangers of the last year, “Industry Baby,” featuring rapper Jack Harlow.
Lil Nas and “Big” Nas both perform:
Not only did Lil Nas perform, but also “big” Nas got his chance to grace the Grammy stage. He performed some classic hits that any rap fan would appreciate including “I Can,” “Made You Look,” “One Mic,” and a record from his 2021 album King’s Disease II, “Rare.” Nas wasn’t up there alone though, he was backed by an entire band including pianist, Robert Glasper.
Black Stars mourned at the 2022 Grammys:
One of the most touching moments of the awards show was the in-memoriam tribute performance in which the Grammys honored people in the music industry that have died in the past year such as DMX, Young Dolph, Betty Davis and Shock G. Well known musical and theater actors Cynthia Erivo, Leslie Odom Jr., Ben Platt and Rachel Zegler sang some songs from the late-composter, Stephen Sondheim.
H.E.R. guitar showdown with Lenny Kravitz:
Another performance that stood among the plethora of artists that went on the stage was the set done by the multi-talented H.E.R. as she performed hits from her 2021 album Back of My Mind. I mean this girl did everything, not only did she sing her ass off with her performance of her hit single, “Damage,” but she also hopped on the drum set and performed an entire drum solo. But, not to be outdone, Lenny Kravitz jumped on stage with her and they both just did as much as they could to outperform each other on the guitar. It was pretty epic.
To close out the night, we saw a lot of Black people go home with some hardware.
Baby Keem, cousin and collaborator of Kendrick Lamar, won best rap performance for his song, “Family Ties.” If you haven’t heard this one, not sure you could call yourself a rap fan.
Jazmine Sullivan, our underrated queen of R&B took won big on music’s biggest night. She shared the best R&B performance award with Silk Sonic who she tied with and also took home the best R&B album for her 2021 project, Heaux Tales.
Doja Cat and SZA together on stage:
Doja Cat and SZA won the award for best pop duo performance for their 2021 hit single, “Kiss Me More.” When accepting the award SZA had to walk on stage, crutches and all, while Doja was late to accepting the award. When running on stage a tired Doja said, “I have never taken a faster piss in my whole life.”
Silk Sonic swept the awards:
Maybe the biggest winners of the night, Silk Sonic swept all of the awards they were nominated for including, song of the year, the record of the year, the best R&B performance and best R&B song.
Their acceptance speech for record of the year stole the night as Anderson .paak with a wig said, “We are really trying our hardest to remain humble at this point.” He then continued with his wig waving across his face, “in the industry, we call that a clean sweep.”
Jon Batiste wins album of the year:
To close out the night, Jon Batiste won album of the year, the biggest and most prestigious award of the evening for his excellent 2021 R&B album, We Are, becoming the 11th Black artist in the history of the Recording Academy to win the award.