Kendrick Lamar had another great night at the Grammys! He is now the rapper with the most Grammys in history (27), dethroning Jay-Z. Kendrick picked up Best Rap Album for GNX, which is honestly an amazing album. I kind of thought GNX would win Album of the Year, but AOTY ended up going to Bad Bunny (which was well-deserved, I just loved GNX). Significantly, Kendrick has also picked up back-to-back Record of the Year Grammys. Last year, he won for “Not Like Us.” This year, he won for “Luther.” Cher presented ROTY, and it was chaos:
Cher had a lighthearted onstage moment at the 2026 Grammys after briefly stumbling while announcing Record of the Year. The music icon had just been honored with the Recording Academy’s Lifetime Achievement Award at the 68th Annual Grammy Awards at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles on Sunday, Feb. 1 when she returned to the stage to present the award.
Appearing momentarily flustered, Cher initially read out “Luther Vandross” — the late singer whose work inspired the winning track — before quickly correcting herself and naming the actual winners, Kendrick Lamar and SZA, for their song “Luther.”
“And the Grammy goes to… Oh! They told me it was going to be on a prompter,” Cher, 79, said. “Oh, the Grammy goes to Luther Vandross. Oh Kendrick, no Kendrick Lamar!”
The moment was met with laughter inside the arena as the camera cut to Kendrick in the audience, who appeared to chuckle as he realized he had won. As Kendrick and SZA walked to the stage, Cher appeared to mouth, “I’m so sorry” before stepping aside.
“Luther,” from Kendrick’s 2024 album GNX, samples Luther Vandross and Cheryl Lynn’s 1982 duet “If This World Were Mine,” a connection that several members of the creative team referenced during the acceptance speech.
“This is what music is about. Luther Vandross, this, this is special for me. I gotta take my time,” the rapper, 38, began. “It’s one of my favorite artists of all time, and they granted us the privilege to do our version of this. When we got that clearance, I promise you, we definitely all dropped a tear, because we know how much him and Cheryl Lynn poured into that record.”
“And being able to put our vocals of it, it proves that we were somewhat worthy to be just as great as them individuals,” he continued. “And they granted us that, you know, they said, ‘No cursing, though — can’t curse on it.’ That was the only thing, right? And we said, ‘You know what we’re looking to do just that, no cursing.’ We’re going to make sure that this song represents love. So I want to appreciate and give thanks to SZA.”
That’s cool that Luther Vandeross’s estate told Kendrick and his team that they could have the rights to the song as long as there was no cursing. It’s a great song. Anyway, Kendrick had a great time, and he was surprisingly (?) the one who didn’t talk about politics. His little tuxedo was cute as hell too.
Photos courtesy of Getty Images, screencap courtesy of the Grammys.