Taylor Swift Primed to Make Music History at Eclectic Grammys

Taylor Swift stands on the field after an AFC Championship NFL football game between the Baltimore Ravens and the Kansas City Chiefs, Sunday, Jan. 28, 2024, in Baltimore. (AP)
Taylor Swift stands on the field after an AFC Championship NFL football game between the Baltimore Ravens and the Kansas City Chiefs, Sunday, Jan. 28, 2024, in Baltimore. (AP)
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Taylor Swift Primed to Make Music History at Eclectic Grammys

Taylor Swift stands on the field after an AFC Championship NFL football game between the Baltimore Ravens and the Kansas City Chiefs, Sunday, Jan. 28, 2024, in Baltimore. (AP)
Taylor Swift stands on the field after an AFC Championship NFL football game between the Baltimore Ravens and the Kansas City Chiefs, Sunday, Jan. 28, 2024, in Baltimore. (AP)

Taylor Swift's name is on everyone's lips as music's glitterati descend on Los Angeles for Sunday's Grammys, but with one of the more eclectic nomination fields in recent memory, the prestigious awards are anyone's game.

Women make up the vast majority of the contenders for the top Best Album and Best Record prizes, with just one man, the jazz polymath Jon Batiste, in the running.

The genre-bending SZA has the most chances at Grammy gold at nine, with Billie Eilish, the supergroup boygenius, and -- of course -- Swift all in tight contention for the major prizes.

Olivia Rodrigo, Miley Cyrus, Janelle Monae and Lana Del Rey are also in the mix to take home trophies.

An Album of the Year win for Swift would be her fourth -- the most for any artist, a new record that would break the tie she is currently in with Frank Sinatra, Paul Simon and Stevie Wonder.

It would be a cherry on top for the 34-year-old, who is already the toast of the music world.

She makes headlines with every breath, not least for her romance with NFL star Travis Kelce, who can't make it to the ceremony as he'll be tied up preparing for next weekend's Super Bowl.

The Grammys will also have a heavy dose of Barbie World: music from the effervescent summer smash earned 11 nods thanks to a bevy of catchy performances, including from Eilish, Dua Lipa, rapper Nicki Minaj and the movie's sleeper standout... Oscar-nominated actor Ryan Gosling.

Bubbly Bronx rapper Ice Spice is also up for an award for her work on "Barbie" as well as the prize for Best New Artist, which industry watchers predict she could take home after a banner year that saw her win the internet.

'Keep pushing'

That seven of eight nominees in the Album and Record of the Year categories are women is a sea change many industry watchers see as long overdue.

Speaking to AFP at a pre-Grammys gala over the weekend, the head of the Recording Academy -- the organization behind the awards -- said he's "optimistic" the strong showing among women nominees is not just a one-off, but part of larger institutional change.

The Grammys have long been accused of being too male and too white, but Academy chief Harvey Mason Jr. said in the past five years, the voting body has brought in 2,500 new women and is now 40 percent people of color.

"We're always going to tinker with the voting, we're always going to try to improve it and look at what's happening in music, and the percentages of what's being created and consumed. We want to make sure we're matching that," he said.

"So we've got work to do. We always do. We've got to have more women, we've got to have more people of color, we've got to have more genre diversity, so we're going to keep pushing."

Best New Artist nominees The War and Treaty -- the blues-country husband-wife duo comprised of Michael Trotter Jr. and Tanya Trotter -- told AFP they feel change is afoot but also emphasized there's much progress to be made.

"I would like to see a day come where it's not like an 'aha!' moment to play a female on radio. It's not like an 'aha!' moment to play different nationalities in country music," said Trotter Jr.

And recognition matters, said Tanya: "Just being nominated for a Grammy, it puts you on a different playing field."

"It gets more eyes on you."

'Full circle'

It will be a particularly poignant evening for Batiste, who triumphed at the 2022 gala while facing immense personal struggle behind the scenes as his wife, the writer Suleika Jaouad, was receiving treatment for a recurrence of leukemia.

This time around, she will be able to join the party as her partner contends for some of music's most prestigious honors.

Among them is the top songwriting prize for "Butterfly," which Batiste wrote for Jaouad while she was in hospital.

"For us to be able to celebrate the album and that song, and to also be at the Grammys again, with her this time? That's what my favorite part of this is," Batiste told AFP in an interview late last year.

"It's full circle."

The vast majority of the more than 90 competitive trophies are doled out prior to the Grammys gala broadcast, which is heavy on spectacle: many of the top nominees, including SZA, Eilish and Rodrigo are on deck to perform.

Nigerian sensation Burna Boy and rapper Travis Scott will also take the stage, along with country singer Luke Combs, who is expected to perform his hit cover of "Fast Car" with Tracy Chapman herself.

The main Grammys gala airs on Sunday at 5:00 pm (0100 GMT Monday) on US network CBS.



Video Game Performers Will Go on Strike Over Artificial Intelligence Concerns 

SAG-AFTRA signage is seen on the side of the headquarters in Los Angeles on Friday, Nov. 10, 2023. (AP)
SAG-AFTRA signage is seen on the side of the headquarters in Los Angeles on Friday, Nov. 10, 2023. (AP)
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Video Game Performers Will Go on Strike Over Artificial Intelligence Concerns 

SAG-AFTRA signage is seen on the side of the headquarters in Los Angeles on Friday, Nov. 10, 2023. (AP)
SAG-AFTRA signage is seen on the side of the headquarters in Los Angeles on Friday, Nov. 10, 2023. (AP)

Hollywood's video game performers announced they would go on strike Thursday, throwing part of the entertainment industry into another work stoppage after talks for a new contract with major game studios broke down over artificial intelligence protections.

The strike — the second for video game voice actors and motion capture performers under the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists — will begin at 12:01 a.m. Friday. The move comes after nearly two years of negotiations with gaming giants, including divisions of Activision, Warner Bros. and Walt Disney Co., over a new interactive media agreement.

SAG-AFTRA negotiators say gains have been made over wages and job safety in the video game contract, but that the two sides remained split over the regulation of generative AI. A spokesperson for the video game producers, Audrey Cooling, said the studios offered AI protections, but SAG-AFTRA’s negotiating committee said that the studios’ definition of who constitutes a "performer" is key to understanding the issue of who would be protected.

"The industry has told us point blank that they do not necessarily consider everyone who is rendering movement performance to be a performer that is covered by the collective bargaining agreement," SAG-AFTRA Chief Contracts Officer Ray Rodriguez said at a news conference Thursday afternoon. He said some physical performances are being treated as "data."

Without guardrails, game companies could train AI to replicate an actor’s voice, or create a digital replica of their likeness without consent or fair compensation, the union said.

"We strike as a matter of last resort. We have given this process absolutely as much time as we responsibly can," Rodriguez told reporters. "We have exhausted the other possibilities, and that is why we’re doing it now."

Cooling said the companies' offer "extends meaningful AI protections."

"We are disappointed the union has chosen to walk away when we are so close to a deal, and we remain prepared to resume negotiations," she said.

Andi Norris, an actor and member of the union's negotiating committee, said that those who do stunt work or creature performances would still be at risk under the game companies' offer.

"The performers who bring their body of work to these games create a whole variety of characters, and all of that work must be covered. Their proposal would carve out anything that doesn’t look and sound identical to me as I sit here, when, in truth, on any given week I am a zombie, I am a soldier, I am a zombie soldier," Norris said. "We cannot and will not accept that a stunt or movement performer giving a full performance on stage next to a voice actor isn’t a performer."

The global video game industry generates well over $100 billion dollars in profit annually, according to game market forecaster Newzoo. The people who design and bring those games to life are the driving force behind that success, SAG-AFTRA said.

Members voted overwhelmingly last year to give leadership the authority to strike. Concerns about how movie studios will use AI helped fuel last year’s film and television strikes by the union, which lasted four months.

The last interactive contract, which expired in November 2022, did not provide protections around AI but secured a bonus compensation structure for voice actors and performance capture artists after an 11-month strike that began in October 2016. That work stoppage marked the first major labor action from SAG-AFTRA following the merger of Hollywood’s two largest actors unions in 2012.

The video game agreement covers more than 2,500 "off-camera (voiceover) performers, on-camera (motion capture, stunt) performers, stunt coordinators, singers, dancers, puppeteers, and background performers," according to the union.

Amid the tense interactive negotiations, SAG-AFTRA created a separate contract in February that covered independent and lower-budget video game projects. The tiered-budget independent interactive media agreement contains some of the protections on AI that video game industry titans have rejected. Games signed to an interim interactive media agreement, tiered-budget independent interactive agreement or interim interactive localization agreement are not part of the strike, the union said.