Tame Impala continued the rave reinvention documented on club-influenced new album Deadbeat with a nomination for Best Dance\/Electronic Recording, after taking home the same award as a featured artist on Justice\u2019s Neverender last year. And British artists made an even stronger showing than usual, with Lola Young and Olivia Dean deservedly earning their first ever nods in the Best New Artist category.<\/p>\n
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The nomination that we really didn\u2019t have on our Grammys 2026 bingo card can be found in the shortlist for Producer of the Year, Non-Classical. Amid a handful of deserving but predictable inclusions \u2013 Sounwave, Dan Auerbach, Blake Mills and Cirkut \u2013 sits an artist and producer that, despite having experienced an astronomical come-up over the past few years, remains something of a newcomer to the wider industry: Dijon Duenas.<\/p>\n
Best known as a solo artist working under his given name, Dijon records intimate and introspective alt-R&B that has grown more ambitious with each project he’s released. It was his 2021 debut album Absolutely that kickstarted his rise to Grammy recognition, a largely self-produced project recorded alongside a cast of collaborators that included man-of-the-moment Michael Gordon, AKA Mk.gee<\/a>.<\/p>\n Dijon released BABY, the follow-up to Absolutely, earlier this year. A fragmented alloy of pop, soul and R&B framed with boldly experimental production, it couched Dijon\u2019s\u2019 soulful croons in glitchy textures, distorted breaks and golden age hip-hop samples, taking his already distinctive sound to new creative heights. With contributions from Mk.gee, Pino Palladino and Bon Iver\u2019s Justin Vernon and Jenn Wasner, among others, it\u2019s easily one of the year\u2019s best albums.<\/p>\n Scan the rest of the Grammy nominations, though, and you won\u2019t see a single mention of BABY. That\u2019s because \u2013 impressive as it is \u2013 Dijon likely didn\u2019t receive his Producer of the Year nod for that project, but his contribution to Justin Bieber\u2019s 2025 album Swag. Dijon is credited as a writer and producer on four tracks from Bieber\u2019s latest project, contributing to two of its biggest singles: Daisies and Yukon. Swag is up for Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album, while Yukon and Daisies received a nomination apiece.<\/p>\n Dijon\u2019s\u2019 Producer of the Year nomination is a surprise for a number of reasons. Though he\u2019s a gifted producer, he\u2019s best known as a solo artist: aside from Bieber\u2019s Swag, Dijon has racked up only a handful of production credits on other artists\u2019 work in the past. He\u2019s not quite a producer in the sense that Rick Rubin or Greg Kurstin is a producer, a producer for hire that works with multiple artists across multiple projects.<\/p>\n This is the kind of producer that\u2019s typically (though not exclusively) recognized by the Producer of the Year award. An artist can\u2019t receive the award for self-producing their own project \u2013 the Grammy rulebook states that a producer must have worked with an artist other than themselves to be eligible.<\/p>\n The rules also encourage those submitting a producer for consideration to include a \u201cbody of work\u201d of up to nine projects. This brings us to our second reason: in the window of eligibility for the 2026 Grammys, Dijon released his own album, contributed production to a few tracks from Swag and its double album sequel \u2013 and that\u2019s it. Usually, a nominee will have contributed to at least two projects with other artists, and often more.<\/p>\n You may like<\/p>\n Justin Bieber – YUKON – YouTube
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