Kendrick Lamar dedicated his Grammy to these pivotal rappers who have never won one
Lamar came into this year's Grammy Awards with a leading 11 total nominations. And even before Monday's live show started, he had already won five of them. But Lamar really took the chance to honor the genre when he accepted the award for best rap album for "To Pimp a Butterfly."
After thanking his parents and wife, Whitney Alford, and his label Top Dawg, Lamar dedicated the award to hip-hop, then named two legendary artists and their pioneering rap albums.
"This for hip-hop," Lamar said after Ice Cube presented him the award. "This for Snoop Dogg 'Doggystyle,' this for 'Illmatic,' this for Nas. We will live forever, believe that."
Neither Nas nor Snoop Dogg has won a Grammy.
The dedication is absolutely in line with the show's special hip-hop theme of the night. The cast of "Hamilton," Broadway's hit hip-hop show, is performing. And rap trailblazers Run DMC will be honored with the Grammy lifetime achievement award.
In addition to rap album, Lamar also won best rap performance ("Alright"), best rap/sung collaboration ("These Walls," with Bilal, Anna Wise, and Thundercat), best rap song ("Alright"), and best music video ("Bad Blood," with Taylor Swift).
At the time of this writing, he was still up for album of the year, song of the year for "Alright," and best pop duo/group performance on "Bad Blood" with Swift.