In a sense, the 2023 Grammys simply told audiences what they already knew. There wasn’t much in the way of surprises, unless you count Killer Mike’s evening: even before he departed the Crytpto.com arena in handcuffs following an alleged battery incident, he had won three awards, no mean feat for a politically driven rapper knocking on 50 years old. André 3000, guest artist on Killer Mike’s best rap performance-winning track Scientists & Engineers, recently fretted: “I’m 48 years old. Not to say that age is a thing that dictates what you rap about, but in a way it does. What do you talk about – I gotta go get a colonoscopy?” Killer Mike’s success, with another in a string of deeply felt and socially conscious albums, is its own rebuttal – as is Victoria Monét becoming the oldest winner of best new artist at 34.
But elsewhere, the winners were pretty much as you might have expected. Women clearly dominated the awards: only one male artist, Jon Batiste, was nominated in the top three categories; the most striking performances on the night came from SZA, Joni Mitchell and Billie Eilish, the latter taking home her ninth Grammy at the age of 22; outside of the winners the biggest news stories were the unexpected appearances of Céline Dion, handing out the album of the year award and Tracy Chapman, who last released an album in 2008 and last performed in public nine years ago, duetting with Luke Combs.
