Kendrick Lamar and SZA\u2019s \u201cLuther\u201d was named record of the year at Sunday night\u2019s 68th Grammy Awards, giving Lamar his second straight win in the category after he took it in 2025 with his smash hit Drake diss, \u201cNot Like Us.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Compton-born rapper is one of only four acts in Grammy history who\u2019ve gone back to back in record of the year, along with Billie Eilish, U2 and Roberta Flack.<\/p>\n
Built on a prominent sample of Luther Vandross and Cheryl Lynn\u2019s 1982 duet \u201cIf This World Were Mine\u201d (itself a cover of the song Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell introduced in 1967), \u201cLuther\u201d is from Lamar\u2019s sixth studio album, \u201cGNX,\u201d which came out in November 2024. <\/p>\n
\u201cLuther forever. Cheryl, thank you so much,\u201d Lamar said, closing out his acceptance speech. Cher announced the winner after accepting a lifetime achievement award, at first just reading off Vandross\u2019 name \u2014 following some confusion when she began to walk off stage, then turned around, before reading off the nominees. She appeared to not know where to find the name of the winner but caught on to the fact that the song samples Vandross. <\/p>\n
\u201cLuther Vandross,\u201d Lamar said, laughing with others on stage and the crowd, \u201cis one of my favorite artists of all time. They granted us the privilege to do our version of it. When we got that clearance, I promise you we damn near all dropped a tear because we know how much him and Cheryl Lynn poured into that record and being able to put our vocals in it, it proves we were somewhat worthy to be just as great as them individuals.\u201d The only catch was they couldn\u2019t curse, he added smiling. Vandross died in 2005. <\/p>\n
The song \u2014 which was produced by Jack Antonoff, Bridgeway, M-Tech, Roselilah, Sounwave and Kamasi Washington \u2014 spent 13 weeks atop Billboard\u2019s Hot 100, longer than any other single in 2025. On Spotify, \u201cLuther\u201d has been streamed more than 1.3 billion times.<\/p>\n
For her part, SZA asked the audience to not fall into despair.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know that right now is a scary time. I know the algorithms tell us that it\u2019s so scary and all is lost. There\u2019s been world wars and there\u2019s been plagues and we have gone on. We can go on. We need each other,\u201d SZA said. \u201cWe\u2019re not governed by the government. We\u2019re governed by God.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLuther\u201d also won melodic rap performance. Other Grammy wins for Lamar include rap album for \u201cGNX,\u201d rap song for \u201cTV Off\u201d and rap performance for \u201cChains & Whips\u201d by Clipse, Pusha T and Malice featuring Lamar and Pharrell Williams. Lamar is now the most-awarded rapper in Grammys history, with 27 total wins.<\/a> He is also the first rapper to win record of the year twice and the first male artist and rapper to win the prize consecutively. <\/p>\n The other songs nominated for record of the year were Bad Bunny\u2019s \u201cDtMF,\u201d Sabrina Carpenter\u2019s \u201cManchild,\u201d Doechii\u2019s \u201cAnxiety,\u201d Billie Eilish\u2019s \u201cWildflower,\u201d Lady Gaga\u2019s \u201cAbracadabra,\u201d Chappell Roan\u2019s \u201cThe Subway\u201d and \u201cApt.\u201d by Ros\u00e9 and Bruno Mars.<\/p>\n Times staff writers Jessica Gelt and Brittany Levine Beckman contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kendrick Lamar and SZA\u2019s \u201cLuther\u201d was named record of the year at Sunday night\u2019s 68th Grammy Awards, giving…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":159994,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[6306,46112,77876,77878,37601,77877,28645,48,52,51,47,50,49,77872,77875,5681,77873,10390,77874,29342,72],"class_list":["post-159993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-billboard","tag-billie-eilish","tag-bridgeway","tag-cheryl-lynn","tag-grammy","tag-kamasi-washington","tag-kendrick-lamar","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-luther","tag-m-tech","tag-record","tag-roselilah","tag-song","tag-sounwave","tag-sza","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}