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LOS ANGELES — Luminaries of the music business gather to hand out the annual Grammy awards on Sunday at a red-carpet ceremony that may culminate with another record for Taylor Swift.

The 34-year-old pop superstar in the middle of the world’s highest-grossing tour is competing for an unprecedented fourth album of the year trophy with “Midnights.”

No other artist in the 66-year Grammys history has claimed the coveted honor four times. Music legends Frank Sinatra, Paul Simon and Stevie Wonder won three each.

The awards will be broadcast live on CBS and streamed on Paramount+ PARA.O starting at 5 p.m. PT (0100 GMT). Comedian Trevor Noah returns for a fourth stint to host the ceremony at Crypto.com Arena in downtown Los Angeles.

Heavy rain is forecast to hit southern California on Sunday. Grammy organizers said the pre-ceremony red carpet would be held under tents to protect nominees from the weather.

Swift is not a lock for the album award. Industry pundits said it could go to “SOS” from R&B artist SZA, who would be the first Black woman since Lauryn Hill 25 years ago to win the category as a lead artist. SZA, singer of dark ballad “Kill Bill,” leads all Grammy nominees this year with nine nods.

“It’s very tight between SZA for ‘SOS’ and Taylor for ‘Midnights,'” said Billboard awards editor Paul Grein, who gave the edge to SZA. “They are overdue for an R&B/hip-hop winner.”

Women figure prominently in the 2024 Grammys field. Just one man, Jon Batiste, made the cut among eight nominees for the album prize. Other contenders include Olivia Rodrigo, Lana Del Rey and boygenius, the band featuring Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus.

Swift also is vying for song of the year, a writing honor that she has never won despite widespread accolades for her lyrics. “Anti-Hero,” her examination of self-doubt, faces competition from Miley Cyrus empowerment anthem “Flowers” and others.

Music from the blockbuster “Barbie” movie received 12 nominations, including record of the year for Billie Eilish’s ballad “What Was I Made For?”

Contenders in the best new artist field include rapper Ice Spice, country singer Jelly Roll, R&B and pop singer Victoria Monet, singer-songwriter Coco Jones and folk-pop singer Noah Kahan.

Scheduled performers on the Grammys stage include SZA, Billy Joel, Joni Mitchell, Dua Lipa, Luke Combs and Burna Boy. U2 will perform live from the Sphere in Las Vegas.

Winners were chosen by the musicians, producers, engineers and others who make up the Recording Academy. The group has worked to diversify its membership in recent years by inviting more women and people of color to its ranks.

Organizers also added a handful of new categories this year, including best African music performance. 
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LOS ANGELES — When the biggest names in music gather Sunday for the industry’s top honors at the Grammy Awards, they will hand out a new trophy for best African music performance.

The prize reflects the growing popularity of Afrobeats, and other music from the continent, which is gaining a global audience with help from social media platforms such as short-form video app TikTok.

Afrobeats originated in West Africa, primarily Ghana and Nigeria, though the term is often used as a catch-all for various music styles coming from Africa. It features percussion rhythms mixed with various genres from rap to jazz, R&B and others.

Modern Afrobeats “has a feel-good groove to it,” said Heran Mamo, R&B and hip-hop reporter at Billboard magazine, which created a U.S. Afrobeats chart in 2022. “It’s bound to reach a wider audience because it already contains a little bit of everything for everyone.”

On Spotify, Afrobeats music was streamed 13.5 billion times in 2022, up from 2 billion in 2017.

In another milestone, Nigerian singer Burna Boy became the first African artist to sell out a U.S. stadium when he played New York’s Citi Field last summer.

Musicians in the running for the new Grammy on Sunday include Tyla, a 22-year-old South African singer. She hit the top 10 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart with the danceable Water, an example of a genre known as amapiano, a jazz- and piano-infused sound.

A TikTok executive in South Africa had noticed Tyla gaining attention in her local market back in 2020, and reached out to her with tips on how to maximize her presence on the app.

Water was released in July 2023, after Tyla signed with Sony Music Entertainment’s 6758.T Epic Records.

By September, TikTok users were replicating Tyla’s dance moves in the #WaterChallenge. To date, 1.5 million videos have been created using the song, and the #WaterChallenge hashtag has been viewed 1.8 billion times, according to TikTok.

“I think that TikTok has played the role of incubator, but also the distributor to the billion-plus global users and it’s just really landed,” said Ole Obermann, global head of music at TikTok.

Tyla’s success illustrates the power of TikTok and YouTube to help artists find fan bases around the world, a role once reserved for music labels.

“The proliferation of streaming along with new social media platforms (e.g. TikTok) has accelerated artist discovery, and have provided new mediums for artists to grow their fan bases globally,” Bank of America Securities analyst Jessica Reif Cohen said in a research note predicting media trends for 2024.

TikTok remains controversial in the United States because of its ownership by Chinese company ByteDance, which critics view as a security risk. The Biden administration has banned the app on U.S. government devices. TikTok officials say they have rigorous safeguards in place and they reject allegations of spying on user data.

The app also is in a dispute with Universal Music GroupUMG.AS over how much it pays for use of songs from Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish and others. Music from many Universal artists was unavailable on TikTok as of Friday.

For U.S. teenagers, TikTok ranks as the second-most common music discovery source behind YouTube, according to a recent MIDiA Research survey that showed 45% of 16- to 19-year-olds found new music through the platform.

Other Afrobeats artists who found audiences on TikTok include Nigerian rapper Rema. He collaborated with Selena Gomez for a remix of his song Calm Down, which hit No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and won an award for best Afrobeats at MTV’s Video Music Awards last September.

TikTok is helping to forge new connections between U.S. and African artists. Obermann said he played a short clip of a song called Ojapiano from Nigerian musician KCee for Ryan Tedder, a songwriter and lead singer for the band OneRepublic.

Tedder liked the sound so much that he immediately reached out to KCee, who jumped on a plane from Lagos to Los Angeles two days later so the pair could make a remix of the song.

Obermann hopes the soon-to-be-released remix will give new life to Ojapiano, a combination of amapiano and a Nigerian flute called Oja, and keep fueling the Afrobeats craze.

“This is going to be a big, growing genre,” Obermann said.
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Hong Kong  — Frustrated Hong Kong residents say they have been unable to watch the online TV series Expats, starring Hollywood star Nicole Kidman, which was launched globally on Amazon Prime Video late last week and focuses on the former British colony.

The six-part show, directed by Chinese-born American filmmaker Lulu Wang, is based on a novel by Korean American author Janice Y. K. Lee.

The plot revolves around the lives of three women in Hong Kong in 2014, and the scenes include numerous Hong Kong elements. In addition to settings in familiar tourist sites such as Victoria Harbor, it reproduces scenes of the 2014 Hong Kong protests, also known as the Umbrella Movement, when protesters took to the streets holding umbrellas, demanding the right to choose the city’s chief executive.

It is still unclear whether the decision to block the program in Hong Kong was a business decision or whether it was due to interference from authorities there. Analysts suspect that local Amazon Prime users are unable to watch the program because of those reproduced scenes of the 2014 protests.

Some also worry it may be another sign of Beijing’s broader crackdown on the arts.

A Hong Kong government spokesperson told RFA: “We have no comment on the operational arrangements of individual businesses.”

A spokesperson for the Hong Kong government issued a statement late last month saying that the current Film Censorship Ordinance only regulates films and does not apply to streaming or Internet platforms.

VOA reached out to Amazon Prime Video’s Hong Kong office for comment on why the show is not available in the city but did not receive any response by the time of publication.

“Since this movie was shot in Hong Kong, the director of the movie is of Chinese origin, and the content has a lot to do with the true events, ordinary Hong Kong citizens will definitely want to see a show that truly reflects Hong Kong society,” said Guo Zhenming, a Chinese independent film director.

Guo told VOA he believes self-censorship by Amazon may have kept the show from airing in Hong Kong.

Kenny Ng, a film censorship expert at Hong Kong Baptist University, believes that the matter is not directly related to the Hong Kong government.

“So many new shows are created on earth every day,” Ng said. “I don’t believe that the officials of the Hong Kong government have the ability to know that such a series is about to be released. The current Hong Kong censorship regulations govern films shown in theaters, not streaming platforms. … A series not being shown is often the result of a compromise made after negotiations.”

He believes Amazon may have made a business decision to abandon the Hong Kong market for this show based on the territory’s political situation and social atmosphere.

Ng believes that no matter whose decision it was, Hong Kong people’s freedom to watch the show has certainly been violated. He said many Hong Kong people are going to movie and TV show websites in China to look for the show.

“If the public had a choice, they might not be so eager to see this show. But now they suddenly cannot see it, everyone is doing everything possible to go and see it,” he said.

He said there will always be a market for banned shows.
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MADRID — A poster in the southern Spanish city of Seville that depicts a young, handsome Jesus wearing only a loincloth has unleashed a storm on social media, with some calling it an affront to the figure of Christ and others posting lewd remarks and memes poking fun at the image.

The poster by internationally recognized Seville artist Salustiano García Cruz shows a fresh-faced Jesus without a crown of thorns, no suffering face and minuscule wounds on the hands and ribcage. It was commissioned and approved by the General Council of Brotherhoods, which organizes the renowned and immensely popular Holy Week processions ahead of Easter in Seville.

As soon as it was unveiled last week criticism of it went viral on social media and a debate erupted over how a resurrected Christ should be depicted. Many called it a disgrace, inappropriate, too pretty, modernist and out of line with Seville’s Easter tradition.

Spain is predominantly Catholic and church traditions such as marriage, baptisms and religious parades are immensely popular both among believers and nonbelievers. A campaign on Change.org to have the poster of Jesus withdrawn was signed by some 14,000 people from around the country.

The artist, García, defended the work and dismissed the poster’s critics as old fashioned.

“There is nothing revolutionary in the painting,” García told Atlas news agency. “There is contemporaneity, but all the elements that I have used are elements that have been used in the last seven centuries in sacred art.

“I don’t see at what point, at what element, people who don’t like it don’t like it,” he said.

In another interview published by El Mundo daily, Garcia responded to criticism from conservative groups that the depiction of Jesus was “effeminate” or “homoerotic.”

“A gay Christ because he looks sweet and is handsome, come on! We are in the 21st century,” García said.

The artist said he used his son, Horacio, as the model for the poster.

“It caught us a little more by surprise because everything was done with respect,” Horacio Garcia told Atlas.

“A lot of controversy comes from the fact that the model is too good, the Christ too handsome, too attractive,” he said. But it hasn’t been all bad: Horacio Garcia said he also has received many compliments and good wishes from people.

The General Council of Brotherhoods has so far ignored calls to replace the poster before Holy Week at the end of March. In past years, some posters for different Catholic celebrations were withdrawn following criticism.

Seville Mayor José Luis Sanz labeled the controversy “artificial.”

“I like the poster,” he said, adding that not all Holy Week posters can be the same each year. “Some posters are riskier, some more classical, some are more daring.”
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NEW YORK — Carl Weathers, a former NFL linebacker who became a Hollywood action movie and comedy star, playing nemesis-turned-ally Apollo Creed in the “Rocky” movies, facing off against Arnold Schwarzenegger in “Predator” and teaching golf in “Happy Gilmore,” has died. He was 76.

Matt Luber, his manager, said Weathers died Thursday. His family issued a statement saying he died “peacefully in his sleep.”

Weathers was comfortable flexing his muscles on the big screen in “Action Jackson” as well as joking around on the small screen in such shows as “Arrested Development.” He was perhaps most closely associated with Creed, who made his first appearance as the cocky, undisputed heavyweight world champion in 1976’s “Rocky,” starring Sylvester Stallone.

“It puts you on the map and makes your career, so to speak. But that’s a one-off, so you’ve got to follow it up with something. Fortunately, those movies kept coming, and Apollo Creed became more and more in people’s consciousness and welcome in their lives, and it was just the right guy at the right time,” he told The Daily Beast in 2017.

Most recently, Weathers appeared in all three seasons of the Disney+ hit “The Mandalorian,” for which he earned an Emmy nomination in 2021.

Creed, who appeared in the first four “Rocky” movies, memorably died in the ring of 1984’s “Rocky IV,” going toe-to-toe with the hulking, steroid-using Soviet Ivan Drago, played by Dolph Lundgren.

Weathers went on to 1987’s “Predator,” where he flexed his pecs alongside Schwarzenegger, Jesse Ventura and a host of others, and 1988’s nouveau blaxploitation flick “Action Jackson.”

He later added a false wooden hand to play a golf pro for the 1996 comedy classic “Happy Gilmore” opposite Adam Sandler and starred in Dick Wolf’s short-lived spin-off series “Chicago Justice” in 2017.

He also voiced Combat Carl in the “Toy Story” franchise.

Weathers grew up admiring actors such as Woody Strode, whose combination of physique and acting prowess in “Spartacus” made an early impression. Others he idolized included actors Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte and athletes Jim Brown and Muhammad Ali, stars who broke the mold and the color barrier.

“There are so many people that came before me who I admired and whose success I wanted to emulate, and just kind of hit the benchmarks they hit in terms of success, who created a pathway that I’ve been able to walk and find success as a result. And hopefully I can inspire someone else to do good work as well,” he told the Detroit News in 2023.

Growing up in New Orleans, Weathers started performing in plays as early as grade school. In high school, athletics took him down another path, but he would reunite with his first love later in life.

Weathers played college football at San Diego State University — he majored in theater — and went on to play for one season in the NFL, for the Oakland Raiders, in 1970.

After the Raiders, he joined the Canadian Football League, playing for two years while finishing his studies during the offseason at San Francisco State University. He graduated with a B.A. in drama in 1974.

After appearing in several films and TV shows, including “Good Times,” “The Six Million Dollar Man,” “In the Heat of the Night” and “Starsky & Hutch,” as well as fighting Nazis alongside Harrison Ford in “Force 10 From Navarone,” Weathers landed his knockout role — Creed. He told The Hollywood Reporter that his start in the iconic franchise was not auspicious.

He was asked to read with the writer, Stallone, then unknown. Weathers read the scene but felt it didn’t land and so he blurted out: “I could do a lot better if you got me a real actor to work with,” he recalled. “So I just insulted the star of the movie without really knowing it and not intending to.”

Weathers is survived by two sons.
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