In the final hours before the 65th annual Grammy Awards kick off at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, all eyes are on Beyoncé as she prepares to end the night with the most Grammy wins in history.
With nine nominations under her belt this year (and having already secured two at a preshow event on Sunday: Best Dance/Electronic Recording for “Break My Soul,” and Best Traditional R&B Performance for “Plastic Off the Sofa,”) the 41-year old icon needs to win just two more on Sunday night at the main ceremony to become the most Grammy awarded artist ever.
Having previously secured 28 Grammys in total throughout her career, she is set to surpass the former record-holder, Hungarian-British conductor Georg Solti, who has held the record of 31 Grammys since 1997.
“Of course Beyoncé could break a record, and that’d be an amazing moment both in music and as a producer, where you’d like to make moments of live TV where significant things happen,” this year’s awards ceremony and producer Ben Winston, told the Guardian.
“The show is going to be really packed and strong. When you have albums like we’ve had, it’s a gift in a massive way. And also quite nerve-racking.”
Beyoncé’s “Renaissance” will be competing for Album of the Year against the likes of Lizzo (“Special”), Adele (“30”), Mary J Blige (“Good Morning Gorgeous”, Deluxe), and Brandi Carlile (“In These Silent Days”). So far, she is predicted to win this category, according to Variety. She is also predicted to take home Best Dance/Electronic Music Album and Best R&B Performance for “Virgo’s Groove”.
For Record of the Year, her “Break My Soul” is up against Adele’s “Easy On Me”, Mary J Blige’s “Good Morning Gorgeous”, “You And Me On The Rock” from Brandi Carlile ft Lucius, Lizzo’s “About Damn Time” and Doja Cat’s “Woman”— among others.
Coming in second to Beyoncé’s nine nominations this year, Kendrick Lamar secured eight nominations, followed by Adele and Brandi Carlile with seven each, and Mary J. Blige with six.
Both Brandi Carlile and Lizzo have already secured wins at the pre-show event on Sunday — Carlile won Best Rock Performance for “Broken Horses,” while Lizzo took home Best Remixed Recording for “About Damn Time (Purple Disco Machine Remix)”.
Hollywood legend Viola Davis (who has recently made headlines for her Oscars snub for her role in The Woman King) took home Best Audio Book, Narration, and Storytelling Recording for her narration of her memoir “Finding Me”, making her the 18th EGOT winner in history, and only the third Black woman.
EGOT winners are artists who have won the “big four” awards: Emmy (television), Grammy (recording arts), Oscar (movies) and Tony (stage/theatre).
Davis made a heartfelt acceptance speech, saying she’d written the book “…to honour the 6-year-old Viola.”
“I wrote this book to honour her life, her joy, her trauma, her everything,” she said.
The last EGOT winner was Jennifer Hudson, in 2021, after securing a Daytime Emmy that year for her interactive special “Baba Yaga.”
Davis, 57, was awarded a Tony in 2010 for Best Actress in the stage version of playwright August Wilson’s “Fences,” an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in the 2017 film adaptation of the play by Denzel Washington and an Emmy in 2015, for lead actress in a drama series, “How to Get Away With Murder”.
Previous EGOT winners include Whoopi Goldberg, Audrey Hepburn, Rita Moreno, Helen Hayes and John Legend.
The Grammys will be hosted by Trevor Noah and broadcast at 12pm noon today in Australia.