Rich Fury/Getty Images for The Recording Academy
Updated 0437 GMT (1237 HKT) April 4, 2022
Rich Fury/Getty Images for The Recording Academy
Silk Sonic, Olivia Rodrigo, Jon Batiste and Chris Stapleton were some of the big winners at Sunday night’s Grammy Awards show, which also included an emotional speech from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“Our musicians wear body armor instead of tuxedos,” Zelensky said in his virtual remarks. “They sing to the wounded. In hospitals.” He added that “the music will break through anyway” and spoke of his country defending its freedom “to live, to love, to sound.”
John Legend then performed his song “Free” along with Ukrainian singer Mika Newton and Ukrainian-American musician Siuzanna Iglidan. Ukrainian poet Lyuba Yakimchuk also was part of the performance.
Silk Sonic, the superduo of Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak, won two of the night’s marquee awards — song of the year and record of the year — for “Leave the Door Open.” That also won best R&B song and tied for best R&B performance.
Rodrigo was named best new artist, and she also won best pop vocal album (“Sour”) and best pop solo performance (“Drivers License”).
Stapleton cleaned up in many of the country categories, including best country album (“Starting Over”), best country song (“Cold”) and best country solo performance (“You Should Probably Leave”).
Batiste, who came into the show with the most nominations (11), won five Grammys and took home the last award of the night as “We Are” won album of the year.
Sunday night’s show, which took place at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, was initially supposed to take place in Los Angeles in January. But it was pushed back and moved because of Covid-19 concerns. As usual, it featured many live performances from top acts across a variety of genres.
Trevor Noah of “The Daily Show” hosted the event for the second straight year.
