SZA Leads the 2024 Grammy Nominations as Women Outpace Men in Leading Categories

Grammy Awards are displayed at the Grammy Museum Experience at Prudential Center in Newark, N.J. on Oct. 10, 2017. (AP)
Grammy Awards are displayed at the Grammy Museum Experience at Prudential Center in Newark, N.J. on Oct. 10, 2017. (AP)
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SZA Leads the 2024 Grammy Nominations as Women Outpace Men in Leading Categories

Grammy Awards are displayed at the Grammy Museum Experience at Prudential Center in Newark, N.J. on Oct. 10, 2017. (AP)
Grammy Awards are displayed at the Grammy Museum Experience at Prudential Center in Newark, N.J. on Oct. 10, 2017. (AP)

SZA is the lead contender for the 66th Grammy Awards, with nine nominations announced Friday.

“Kill Bill,” her revenge anthem cloaked in an R&B ballad, earned her nods for record of the year, song of the year, and best R&B performance. “SOS” is also up for album of the year and best progressive R&B album. The 2024 ceremony will mark the second time SZA has been nominated for record, album, and song of the year in the same year.

And just like at the box office, “Barbie” will be seen — and heard — at the Grammys. Music from the hit film’s soundtrack earned 11 nominations, including nabbing four of the five slots in the visual media song category.

If there is an overall trend in the 2024 nominations, it’s that female acts outperformed their male counterparts. The majority of leading nominees are women and include superstars like Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, Miley Cyrus and Olivia Rodrigo. In both the record and album of the year categories, the only man represented is Jon Batiste.

“Seeing the women nominees this year, and the number of them, was not a surprise but it was something that made me happy,” the Recording Academy CEO and President Harvey Mason jr. told The Associated Press.

He believes that representation allows the next group of creators to look at the nominees and say: “Maybe somebody will love what I do one day, or maybe I have an opportunity to express myself or voice my thoughts like that person.”

SZA, of course, leads the charge, also picking up nominations for best traditional R&B performance (“Love Language”), best R&B song (“Snooze”), best melodic rap performance (“Low”), and best pop duo/group performance (“Ghost in the Machine”). The last features Phoebe Bridgers, who — alongside Victoria Monét, the only leading nominee also up for best new artist — boasts the second-most nominations with seven.

Six of Bridgers’ nods are with her band boygenius, nominated for the first time for record of the year, album of the year, best rock performance, best rock song, best alternative music performance, and best alternative music album.

Also earning six nominations: Swift, Rodrigo, Cyrus, Eilish, Brandy Clark, Batiste and producer Jack Antonoff.

Only recordings released between Oct. 1, 2022, through Sept. 15, 2023 were eligible.

In addition to Monét, the best new artist category is rounded out by Gracie Abrams, Fred again.., Ice Spice, Jelly Roll, Coco Jones, Noah Kahan and The War and Treaty.

For album of the year, it's again Batiste, boygenius, Cyrus, Rodrigo, Swift, and SZA, but with the addition of Lana Del Rey’s “Did you know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd” and Janelle Monáe’s “The Age of Pleasure.”

The song of the year category features Del Rey’s “A&W,” Swift’s “Anti-Hero,” Batiste’s “Butterfly,” Cyrus’ “Flowers,” SZA’s “Kill Bill,” Rodrigo’s “vampire,” and two tracks from the “Barbie” soundtrack: Dua Lipa’s “Dance The Night” and Eilish’s “What Was I Made For?”

While “I’m Just Ken” from “Barbie” did get a nomination, it’s in a songwriting category — so actor Ryan Gosling is not up for a Grammy.

What else is missing? Some fans may notice a dearth of Latin and country musicians in the main categories.

“We need to do more work with our country voters and continue to invite more country voters to the process,” says Mason jr. “Another thing that surprised me was, as big of a year that Latin had this year, (that) we didn’t have more Latin representation in some of the general fields.”

“We want to make sure that our membership is representative of the music that’s being created and concerned,” he added. “So, these nominations always inform us on what we’re going to do over the next few years. And these nominations in particular have told us we need to continue to reach out and communicate with the voting groups within country and Latin.”

There are three new categories at the 2024 Grammys: best pop dance recording, best African music performance and best alternative jazz album. Four of the five acts in the best African music performance category are nominated for the first time: ASAKE & Olamide for “Amapiano,” Davido featuring Musa Keys for “UNAVAILABLE,” Ayra Starr for “Rush,” and Tyla for “Water.” The fifth is the already Grammy-winning Burna Boy for “City Boys.”

The 2024 Grammy Awards will air Feb. 4 live on CBS and Paramount+ from the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles.



Star Wars Series ‘Andor’ Back for Final Season

Mexican actor Diego Luna attends the launch event for the second season of Lucasfilm's "Andor" at El Capitan theater in Hollywood, California, on April 14, 2025. (AFP)
Mexican actor Diego Luna attends the launch event for the second season of Lucasfilm's "Andor" at El Capitan theater in Hollywood, California, on April 14, 2025. (AFP)
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Star Wars Series ‘Andor’ Back for Final Season

Mexican actor Diego Luna attends the launch event for the second season of Lucasfilm's "Andor" at El Capitan theater in Hollywood, California, on April 14, 2025. (AFP)
Mexican actor Diego Luna attends the launch event for the second season of Lucasfilm's "Andor" at El Capitan theater in Hollywood, California, on April 14, 2025. (AFP)

If "Andor" -- which returns from Tuesday for its second and final season -- has been received as one of the very best "Star Wars" TV series, that is largely thanks to the grittier, more adult approach taken by its creator Tony Gilroy.

That standpoint -- far, far away from the family-pleasing tone often encountered in the "Star Wars" universe run by the Disney empire -- should be of no surprise to those who watched the 2002 action thriller "The Bourne Identity", written by Gilroy.

Its genesis was already evident in the 2016 "Star Wars" movie "Rogue One", which Gilroy co-wrote -- and which serves as the climax to "Andor", which recounts the rebellion leading up to that film's events.

"Everything is emotionally charged" because "we're getting close to 'Rogue One'," Diego Luna, the actor who plays the protagonist Cassian Andor, told AFP.

For Disney, the success of "Andor" stands out as a new hope for a franchise that has become hit-or-miss with audiences in recent years.

That is why it has banked heavily on the 12-episode story, which cost a staggering $645 million to make, according to Forbes magazine.

Where "Rogue One" was about a rebel suicide mission to steal the plans for the Death Star, with "characters that sacrifice everything for a cause", "Andor" is about how one of those characters "gets there", Luna said.

Unlike in a typical hero's journey, the series explores the motives and dark sides of both camps: the rebels and the Empire. It spends time with figures such as a rebel alliance operative played by Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgard.

Gilroy, speaking to AFP with Luna during a Paris visit, said the original plan was for five seasons of "Andor", but he came to realize "there's no physical way to do it" given "the volume of work" required.

The result was two seasons, but with episodes that were "more intense, more complex in every possible way", Luna said.

With season one finishing in late 2022 with a stunning 96-percent rating on the critic aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes, season two has star billing on the Disney+ streaming platform.

That season hits the small screen from Tuesday in the United States, or from Wednesday in France, Germany, Italy and other territories.

- Revolutionary reading -

"Andor" is not the only hit "Star Wars" television series.

"The Mandalorian", which preceded it, excited audiences for the first two seasons before interest waned in its third. That story will move to the cinemas, with a film scheduled for release next year.

But "Andor" has impressed fans and critics with its darker vibe, greater political themes and more realistic tone.

Gilroy said his approach to the series was informed by a decades-long reading obsession about uprisings -- "all this crazy stuff I've learnt about... the Russian Revolution and... the French Revolution, and Thomas Paine and Oliver Cromwell and the Haitian Revolution and the Roman Revolution and Zapata."

"I mean, it's all in there," he said.

The second season focuses on the use of propaganda, looking at the tragic destiny of a planet called Ghorman, for which Gilroy and his team embarked on serious world-building, imagining its economy, language, culture and dress.

Part of the inspiration came from a French TV series about a village living under German occupation in World War II, "A French Village".

"I loved that show... I had some of those actors in my head" while writing about Ghorman's inhabitants, he said.

Even if some people might see some echoes of today's Earth in aspects of "Andor", Gilroy said a writer's horizon, stretching years ahead, did not allow him to anticipate current events.

But, he said, "the sad truth is that history is... rinse and repeat," adding: "We so commonly feel, narcissistically, that we live in unique times."

Technology might change, the rhetoric might alter, "but the dynamic of oppression and resistance are a Catherine wheel. It just keeps going. I think it's timeless, sadly."