Kendrick Lamar’s Grammy track goes with a bang
KENDRICK Lamar opened last night’s Grammy music awards with a politically charged performance that culminated in him pretending to shoot his backing dancers.
The rapper — who took home five gongs, including beating Jay-Z to best rap performance and best rap song — was joined on stage by U2 and comedian Dave Chappelle for the performance, titled This Is Satire By Kendrick Lamar.
It included a medley of songs, starting with XXX before moving into DNA and finishing with King’s Dead, and was performed against a backdrop of the US flag and marching troops.
At one point, Chappelle intervened to tell the crowd: ‘Hi, I’m Dave Chappelle and I just want to remind the audience that the only thing more frightening than watching a black man being honest in America is being a black man in America.’
The raucous opener saw Lamar shoot his dancers, adorned in red hoodies, before Lady Gaga almost immediately provided a contrasting performance.
Sitting at a white piano covered in angels wings to perform Joanne — named after her father’s late sister — she called for ‘love and compassion’ before declaring ‘Time’s Up’ and breaking into a performance of Grammy-nominated single Million Reasons.
Both Lamar and Gaga’s performances went down well with fans, with one Twitter user describing Gaga’s as a ‘religous experience’, while another wrote: ‘I’m sure all these other performers are really great but for the love of God can we just have Kendrick back?!’
Bruno Mars stole the show, however, winning all six of the Grammys for which he was nominated, including record of the year.
But success eluded most Brits after Adele’s massive success last year — though an absent Ed Sheeran won best pop vocal album with Divide and solo performance with Shape Of You.
Host James Corden said the show had the ‘most diverse group of nominees’ in Grammy history, but not everyone was so impressed by hs own performance, with one particularly harsh tweeter posting: ‘Can we please stop pretending that James Corden is funny please.’
Author: Ann Jones
