Superstar singer Beyonce dominated the list of Grammy Awards contenders unveiled on Friday, earning 11 nods including an album of the year nomination for her venture into country music, Cowboy Carter.
Behind Beyonce, Billie Eilish, Charli XCX, Kendrick Lamar, and Post Malone are tied with seven nominations each. Pop phenomenon Taylor Swift, and newcomers Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter scored six each.
Women dominated the album of the year category, the top Grammy honour. Beyonce, winner of more Grammys over her career than any other artist, has never taken home the album trophy.
Swift has won the honour four times and is in the running again with her breakup album, The Tortured Poets Department.
Pakistani-American singer Arooj Aftab once again secured two Grammy nominations. This is the fourth consecutive year that Aftab has been nominated.
This year, she’ll be competing for the first time in the Best Alternative Jazz Album category for Night Reign, her collaborative record inculcating elements of Pakistani folk music and bebop jazz.
Aftab has once again secured a nomination in the Best Global Music Performance category for ‘Raat Ki Rani’, the title song from Night Reign. A follow-up to her 2021 Vulture Prince, Aftab’s Night Reign is a nine-song collection focused on the magic and mystery of the late-night hours and all that can happen after dark.
In the Best Alternative Jazz Album category, Aftab will be competing with André 3000 (New Blue Sun), Robert Glasper (Code Derivation), Keyon Harrold (Foreverland), and Meshell Ndegeocello (No More Water: The Gospel Of James Baldwin).
In the Best Global Music Performance category, Aftab’s ‘Raat Ki Rani’ is up against ‘Kashira’, ‘Rise, Sunlight to My Soul’, ‘A Rock Somewhere’, and ‘Bemba Colorá’.
At the awards ceremony in February, Beyonce and Swift records will compete with Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet, Charli XCX’s Brat, Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft, and Roan’s The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess.
The two male artists nominated in the album field were rapper Andre 3000 with New Blue Sun and jazz artist Jacob Collier.
Winners will be chosen by the roughly 13,000 singers, songwriters, producers, engineers and others who make up the Recording Academy.
Beyonce’s Cowboy Carter was viewed by experts and fans as a reclamation and homage to an overlooked legacy of black Americans within country music and culture.
It became the first album by a black woman to land at No. 1 on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart when it was released last spring.
