{"id":802561,"date":"2026-08-04T16:04:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T16:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/802561\/"},"modified":"2026-08-04T16:04:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T16:04:09","slug":"stella-lefty-2027-grammy-best-new-artist-contender","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/802561\/","title":{"rendered":"Stella Lefty: 2027 Grammy Best New Artist Contender"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tOn Sunday (Aug. 2), during her Lollapalooza set, Stella Lefty<\/a> announced that her debut album, Long Way Home, will be released Aug. 21 via Atlantic Outpost. That release date is exactly one week before the end of the eligibility period for the 69th annual Grammy Awards<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Chicago-born singer\/songwriter, who turns 24 on Aug. 13, has a good chance of landing a best new artist nomination and could contribute to a historic showing for country artists. Ella Langley<\/a> and Megan Moroney<\/a> are both very likely to be nominated. If all three make it, this will be the first time that three country artists have been nominated in the same year. Kelsea Ballerini <\/a>and Maren Morris<\/a> were both nominated in 2017, back when there were just five nominees in the category. (There are currently eight nominees in each of the so-called Big Four categories \u2013 album, record and song of the year plus best new artist.)<\/p>\n

\n\tTwo country artists (broadly defined) have been nominated in the category twice since then: Luke Combs<\/a> and Margo Price<\/a> in 2019 and Jelly Roll<\/a> and The War and Treaty in 2024.<\/p>\n

\n\tOther country artists who could be nominated this year include Tucker Wetmore<\/a> and The Red Clay Strays<\/a>. Lefty opened shows this year on Wetmore\u2019s The Brunette World Tour.<\/p>\n

\n\tLefty\u2019s current hit \u201cBoston\u201d exploded at just the right time. It reached No. 3 on last week\u2019s Billboard Hot 100 and this week dips to No. 5. Lefty co-wrote the song, which interpolates Noah Kahan<\/a>\u2019s \u201cStick Season.\u201d (Kahan was a best new artist nominee in 2024.)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tLefty \u2013 it\u2019s a simplified version of her last name, Lefkofsky \u2013 grew up listening to country and pop artists, including Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus, Tim McGraw and Brad Paisley.<\/p>\n

\n\tBillboard\u2019s Jessica Nicholson profiled Lefty in May, soon after she made a big impression at the Stagecoach country music festival \u2013 even though she wasn\u2019t officially on the bill. She joined tourmate Cameron Whitcomb for a rendition of Tyler Childers\u2019 \u201cAll Your\u2019n,\u201d and sang \u201cBoston\u201d during Wyatt Flores\u2019 and Diplo\u2019s respective sets.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s so crazy to be so embraced in a genre that I\u2019ve always loved,\u201d Lefty told Nicholson. \u201cCountry music has been such a huge part of my life. And I feel like it\u2019s always scary when you start making music that kind of bleeds into a genre. Country is so specific about who they embrace and how they go about things, so to be accepted in that world is truly the greatest honor.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThat love for both country and pop threads through her music.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019ve been super particular about wanting to live in both spaces as best as I can,\u201d Lefty added. \u201cEvery time we\u2019ve been talking about doing something, it\u2019s like, \u2018Maybe it would be helpful for the audience if they really understood what lane you wanted to be in,\u2019 and I\u2019m always like, \u2018No, I will not pick a lane.\u2019 I won\u2019t, because it wouldn\u2019t be authentic for me. Music now is so genre-bendy and so fluid. I don\u2019t want to put myself into a box because whoever is going to love the music is going to love it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tNon-country artists who seem like sure bets for best new artist nominations this year include Sienna Spiro and Geese. Other strong contenders for the eight spots (they fill up fast) include Dominic Fike, Bella Kay, Role Model, Malcolm Todd, Ken Carson, Miles Caton, Dijon, Ravyn Lenae, Mariah the Scientist, Slayyter and Trueno.<\/p>\n

\n\tA big question mark in the category is Don Toliver, who is highly regarded as an innovator in the hip-hop world, but who has had five consecutive top\u00a010 albums on the Billboard\u00a0200 dating back to March 2020. It will be up to a screening committee to determine if that runs afoul of the first guideline under \u201cNot Eligible\u201d in the Grammy Rules & Guidelines book<\/a>: \u201cAny artist who had achieved a breakthrough in a prior eligibility period.\u201d (The best new artist rules are spelled out on pages 14-16.)<\/p>\n

\n\tThe eligibility period for the 69th annual Grammy Awards runs from Aug.\u00a031, 2025, through Aug.\u00a028, 2026. First-round voting will be conducted from Oct.\u00a012 to Oct.\u00a022. Nominations will be announced Nov.\u00a016.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Sunday (Aug. 2), during her Lollapalooza set, Stella Lefty announced that her debut album, Long Way Home,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":802562,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[10546,88,64964,65662,216,498],"class_list":["post-802561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-awards","tag-entertainment","tag-genre-country","tag-grammys","tag-music","tag-music-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=802561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802561\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/802562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=802561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=802561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=802561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}