Lady Gaga and Kendrick Lamar lead the nominees for the 2026 Grammy Awards, while K-Pop has broken into the song of the year category for the first time.
For the second year in a row, Compton rapper Lamar has the most nominations – nine in total – including a coveted album of the year nod for the sleek, fiery GNX.
Gaga is also up for the main prize for Mayhem, a record that leans into her own history, and marks a return to her electro-pop roots. She has seven nominations overall.
Meanwhile, two K-Pop songs are shortlisted for song of the year: Rosé and Bruno Mars’ frothy pop hit APT, and Hunter/x’s Golden, the breakout hit from Netflix’s animated film K-Pop Demon Hunters.
Both Gaga and Lamar have five previous nominations for album of the year, but neither has ever lifted the coveted gold gramophone in that category.
Lamar is the early frontrunner, coming off the back of multiple wins for his razor sharp diss track Not Like Us at the 2025 Grammys.
If he manages to win album of the year next February, GNX would become the first rap album to secure the night’s main prize since Outkast’s Speakerboxxx/The Love Below in 2004.
He faces competition from fellow rap maverick Tyler, The Creator with his wildly inventive Chromakopia; and reunited hip-hop duo Clipse, whose Let God Sort Em Out is their first release since 2009.
It is the first time in Grammy history that three rap albums have made the shortlist for album of the year.
Also nominated is Puerto Rican star Bad Bunny – who is separately set to headline next year’s Super Bowl half time show.
He’s recognised for the musically ambitious Debí Tirar Más Fotos, which fuses live instrumentation with the hip-swaying pulse of reggaeton and more traditional Puerto Rican styles like plena.
It is only the second time an entirely Spanish-language album has been shortlisted for the prize. The first was Bad Bunny’s 2022 release Un Verano Sin Ti.
(BBC)
