Aside from an eight-year hiatus, noise-poppers the Jesus and Mary Chain have been together and productive for more than four decades — and stuck to their guns creatively. 

How could a hysterical, screaming, improvised onstage meltdown from the mid-'80s — titled "Jesus F—" — possibly foreshadow this?

"The first six months of the band was the only time that you could get away with doing things like that," Jim Reid, their co-leader with brother William, tells GRAMMY.com. "People have paid next to no money to see you. They're not really your fans, because you don't have fans yet. So, you just went out there and did whatever the f— you want."

This involved any number of onstage provocations, fueled by Dutch courage — swinging at the audience, cursing them, playing with their backs to the audience. Of course, the rest is history: they got their act together, at least enough to make masterpieces like 1985's Psychocandy and 1987's Darklands.

After six albums, the chemicals and resentments came to a head in 1999. The Reids wouldn't fire up the project again until 2007, nor release a new album until 2017. But the Mary Chain have forged on.

Despite their tumultuous history, their new album, Glasgow Eyes, out March 8, bears remarkable artistic consistency; it's like the verbal and physical fisticuffs never happened. On tunes like "jamcod," "The Eagles and the Beatles" and "Hey Lou Reid," the Reid brothers' creative compass remains unswerving: Whatever they started doing in 1983, they're still doing it.

"We started because we didn't like the music that we were hearing coming out of the radio," Reid says, calling the pop hits of the day "diarrhea." And if the mainstream still alienates you in 2024, well — look at it all through Glasgow Eyes.

Reid spoke with GRAMMY.com about the past, present and future of the Jesus and Mary Chain.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

In the Glasgow Eyes press release, you said something succinct yet kind of holistic and profound: "Our creative approach is remarkably the same as it was in 1984, just hit the studio and see what happens." Can you expand on that at all?

Well, that's just the way it works. To be honest, when we go into the studio very often we don't have a clue what the record's going to sound like. We've got songs. We don't write in the studio. So, there are a collection of songs, but they could go in any direction.

Generally, we deliberately try not to plan what the record's going to end up [as]. But the only thing that we did see with this record, is we wanted to get out the synths and drum machines. We used things like that in the past, but never quite so upfront. 

Did that come from what you were listening to at the time? Darker, older stuff?

We've always listened to that kind of music, but I guess people might not have actually realized that. We love all of that krautrock stuff — Kraftwerk and D.A.F. and Can and all of that. All of those kinds of bands are massively important to us.

It feels like on the earliest Jesus and Mary Chain material, the outré stuff was the yin to pop's yang.

Well, yeah, that's kind of it with us, really. It's the whole package: it's psycho and it's candy.

Regarding that great '80s-ish dark music, what have you been listening to lately?

I'm terrible because I don't listen to much new music. I'm pretty satisfied with my old record collection, and I play kind of a mystery jukebox. Every record I've ever bought since I was 12 is on this computer here, and I just sit with the computer on random play.

I'll just trawl through the records I've had for a long time and I'll dig something out that way. I heard something the other day — it's not a new band, but I can't remember how I heard it. Somebody played it, maybe. A band called Crocodiles. I quite like them. It sounded really good.

When it comes to releasing new music, is the landscape of 2024 destabilizing for you?

Yeah, the musical landscape has always confused us, to be honest with you. Mary Chain never really belonged. We never fit in. We didn't fit in 1984 when we started, and that was why we started.

We started because we didn't like the music that we were hearing coming out of the radio. We thought the radio was ill; we thought it was sick. It was spewing out all of this diarrhea, and we thought, well, it's got to be some better music that can come out of that thing than what we're hearing now.

I'm sorry, but just Kid Creole and the Coconuts — and Spandau Ballet — did not float our boats in 1984 or '85. So it was rubbish then in a kind of way that that's always been the driving force for the Mary Chain. We just think that everybody else's music just isn't good enough. So we will kind of do it to our satisfaction and that's it.

Did you ever meet Mark E. Smith from the Fall back in the day?

I never met Mark E. Smith. He was kind of terrifying from what I can understand. I would've been scared to meet Mark, but loved his band.

I ask because Hex Enduction Hour is one of my favorite albums of all time, and Smith consciously crafted it as a reaction to "bland bastards like… Spandau Ballet."

Oh, God, yeah. That was the dark side of the '80s. Those were the bands that came along and hijacked music and destroyed its soul, I suppose. Take the 1960s and the 1970s. You turned on the radio, and you heard the Rolling Stones singing "I Can't Get No Satisfaction," and everything was good in the world. Same in the '70s, to a certain degree. It was starting to become less so in the '70s, but you could turn on the radio and you could hear Roxy Music or the Sex Pistols or David Bowie.

We got to the '80s and it was like, What the f—? What's going wrong? So, me and William used to sit there and think, Why did we get the '80s? It's not fair. This is our time, and it's the f—ing '80s.

But there were great bands. There were bands like the Fall, the Cocteau Twins, and the Birthday Party, but they were made to take the crumbs that were left over from the main event, if you know what I mean.

One thing I really admire about Glasgow Eyes is that it sounds like you guys. I feel like many bands from certain eras — I won't name any names — slowly bland down and start to sound like each other. Not the Mary Chain.

Well, that's it. That's all we ever try to do: make a Mary Chain record.

A lot of bands… make a record for their audience. And to us, that's the wrong way around. What you do is you make a record for yourself, and if it's any good, you'll get an audience. But as soon as you start making music for other people, you've had it; you're lost. It's the cart before the horse.

I'm sure you've seen that over and over and over, in your decades in the industry.

Yeah, I see it all the time. Everybody thinks, The last record didn't sell as much as we hoped it would. So, what should we do? Who's selling loads of records right now? Oh, U2; let's make a record for the U2 crowd then. In the 1980s, almost every other band sounded like they were trying to be U2.

How did you guys negotiate that territory? I'm sure 30 years ago, the brass was throwing hot new producers at you, or trying to get you on trend bandwagons.

That was it. Our record label were forever trying to run producers down in our throat. Because we produced more or less all of our own music. [2017's] Damage and Joy was the first time we've ever actually brought a producer into the studio, and that was Youth.

We met Daniel Lanois in the late '80s. And I can't remember what album it was, but at the record company's insistence, we met Daniel Lanois and we had this meeting. And he was saying things like, "Yeah, what we'll do is, we won't get a recording studio. We'll get maybe an old church and we'll get all of the gear in there and we'll just get stoned."

We were like, "I'm not sure about this, Daniel." And he was like, "What are you listening to at the moment?" And we said, "Well, we're listening to a lot of hip-hop actually." And he was like, "Hip-hop, are you kidding me?" You could see him looking for the exit thinking, I want to get out.

That's hilarious.

The drugs that I was into at that time, I certainly wasn't interested in sitting getting stoned with Daniel in a church with U2's music playing in the background. I was more into getting off my tits on cocaine listening to stuff like Run-DMC at that time.

I enjoy imagining this.

It was never going to happen. And then we went back to Warner Brothers — it was Rob Dickens running Warner's at that time… and the guy was shouting at us, "You guys are losers. "Yeah, we're losers. But we're losers that are making pretty good records, Rob, so f— off.

There were a few other comedy meetings with producers. I won't go into it, but it was the same deal every time. They would just come along and say all of the opposite of what we had imagined for the record in question — and so it would just never work out.

**The fruitage of this is that you can make whatever kind of music you want in 2024. Take us through the early stages of making Glasgow Eyes, when you had dumped all your toys on the table, as it were, and began trying to make sense of them.**

William's a bit better, but the thing about me is I'm not very technical at all. I love the idea that this technology is out there to be used, but if it was left to me to actually figure out how to use it, it would never get done. But thankfully, that's what studio engineers are for.

We recorded at Mogwai Studio in Glasgow; it's called Castle of Doom. And Tony Doogan's the house engineer there. With Tony, it was like his record collection was probably the same as ours. So, it was going to work.

And then the way it works is you can just say, "That little sort of slightly detuned synth riff that's on 'Der Mussolini' by D.A.F.," And he would go, "Yeah." I don't know how many times in the past when you [reference these things] and [engineers] just go, "Uh, what?"

So it was really good that we had someone in the studio that could speak our language. And he made all of that technology accessible to us. It would be a few sentences to describe what you were looking for — and then, a couple of presses of buttons and twiddles of knobs later, and you'd be hearing what you just described.

Sounds like you had a lot of old-school reference points.

It's weird when you get to my age, yeah, they were old school. But you're thinking old school is probably the noughties. To me, old-school is like the f—ing 1920s. I'm old, man.

So it was things that I considered to be quite modern. I think of Kraftwerk as a futuristic band — because they are. They made records in the early '70s, but to me, it still sounds like new music. I can imagine people in 50 years would listen to Kraftwerk records and think that it had been made then.

The best music is timeless, and they were just way ahead of the game. Way ahead of the game.

At what point did Glasgow Eyes really start to take shape?

Well, that doesn't happen right away. It's the same every time: you start making the record and at some point you think you're losing it. It's not happening. You're thinking, This is going to be embarrassing. 

It's almost like you will the record into shape. It goes from this unrecognizable beast into this recognizably Mary Chain [work], and then better and better and better. And then almost like within a couple of days you start to think, F—, this sounds pretty good. And then you start to feel really quite smug about it.

And by the end of it you're like, woohoo, we've done it again. So there's some sort of black magic. It's slightly mystical, but it kind of starts to take shape by itself. But it only happens after some trauma and some sort of serious nervous breakdowns in the middle. And then it just seems to come together. I don't know; it's alchemy.

I can't name too many other bands from your scene who are still grinding it out like this, and staying creative.

There's not many of us left, but Primal Scream are still doing it, man. They're as good as they've ever been. [Singer] Bobby [Gillespie]'s our old drummer and he's rocking it out. And I went to see them a few weeks ago and it's great. He's still great. He's still going.

Growing up with the Mary Chain, I remember reading stories about how you guys had a… tempestuous relationship with your audience. Which included a lot of provocation from the stage. Is that true?

Well, it is, but a lot of it was insecurity on our part.

Well, it was a couple of things. One, we'd never been in any other bands before. Lou Reed did a [1980] album called Growing Up in Public; well, that was us. We made all of our mistakes in front of an audience, and often in front of cameras, and often on TV shows.

But we were very, very insecure, and I was incredibly shy. And the only way that I could get the nerve to get on stage was to get wasted. I used to swig down bottles of whiskey before I went onstage — then, I'd be up there, swinging at people and stuff like that. Or telling the audience to go f— themselves.

But it was all based on my own insecurity and that was it. I was unable to deal with the situation that I found myself in. And we quickly learned that you couldn't continue doing that. So we found a way to make it work.

Did you guys really play with your backs to the audience?

Yeah. We were literally so embarrassed and so awkward on stage that we would turn around and every now and again, glimpse over our shoulders at the audience, like, He's still here. Oh, God.

I'll leave you with this: how has your creative relationship with William been over the past several decades?

Well, at the beginning, we were so in tune with each other. It was like we totally, totally agreed with everything about what direction the band ought to be taking.

The band broke up in 1998 for a while, and that was because we just totally lost touch with each other. We used to argue about creative decisions. By 1998, we were arguing about anything.

We couldn't stand being in the same room as each other. And it was a very messy breakup. In 1998, we were trying to f—ing eradicate each other. And then for a couple of years, we couldn't talk. The band broke up, we didn't speak to each other.

[In 2007], the band got back together. Our relationship healed a bit. It's better now than I think it's been for years.

We argue. We always will. We always have. But it's more productive and it's less nasty. And towards 1998, we used to say things that no one ought to say to another human being. And once you've said those kind of things, they can never be taken back.

And I know there are things that he said to me and I've said to him — that even though the wounds have healed, I'm still kind of thinking, But f— you, man. I remember when you said that night.

So now when it's getting that bad, you think, Oh, we're approaching that line, step back. So it works much better now than it used to. We're OK.

Lou Reed's Berlin Is One Of Rock's Darkest Albums. So Why Does It Sound Like So Much Fun?

"I feel I’ve always been in the business of shedding labels, but the world is doubling down," says Ani DiFranco. 

The GRAMMY-winning singer has long been heralded as rebel-rousing and outspoken. On her latest release, Unprecedented Sh!t, DiFranco continues to counter the ideologically divided world, and the labels it imposes. The album is DiFranco's 23rd, and arrives May 17.

It's not coincidental that Unprecedented Sh!t arrives in the midst of pre-election campaigning, affirming DiFranco's drive to use music as a vehicle to protest deep-rooted inequality and prejudices in America and beyond. On "Baby Roe," DiFranco reaffirms women's right to agency over her body and her access to a safe abortion. (DiFranco’s charitable foundation Righteous Babe has long supported women’s rights initiatives, including the National Abortion Federation, Planned Parenthood, and National Institute of Public Health.) Reproductive freedom is "an essential civil right, the centerpiece of what it means to be free as a woman in society," she says.

DiFranco has never shied from wearing her heart on her sleeve and championing her political views. Pre-election in 2016, she penned Binary, an album that explored themes of women’s right to choose, non-violence, and the fundamental necessity to coexist despite different views. The album epitomized what fans have long known: DiFranco’s politics are personal, delivered with a vulnerability and earnestness that gives her songs incredible resonance. 

She is a lyricist who has always worn her heart on her sleeve and, in 2019, brought that candor to a bestselling memoir. No Walls and the Recurring Dream detailed her Buffalo, New York childhood and adventures as a young folk-punk musician, a music label founder (Righteous Babe Records in 1989), a wife and mother. DiFranco continued to evolve post-memoir; in 2021, she dropped new album Revolutionary Love, and in 2023, released the 25th anniversary edition of Little Plastic Castle. She is, unsurprisingly, determined to rally the disillusioned into using their vote and their voices in the face of some, well, unprecedented s—. Indeed, she’s been writing her second children’s book, Show Up and Vote, to be released on Aug. 27.

But making record after record, touring and running her Righteous Babe Records (founded in 1989) hasn’t stopped DiFranco from exploring new artistic territory. She made her Broadway debut in the popular musical "Hadestown" in February this year, nearly 15 years after creating its original studio concept album.

DiFranco was life-altering for a generation of teenagers in the 1990s, perhaps peaking with 1995's Dilate. DiFranco’s spirited, down-to-earth delivery and fearlessness felt empowering, especially when the radio was otherwise transfixed by male-dominated grunge bands. DiFranco sang about burgeoning and disintegrating relationships. Her albums were documents of a buzzing, raucous city life; tales that played out in Chicago, New York, on trains, in shabby apartments, in cafes and bars. Not until "Red Letter Year" in 2008 did listeners hear a more relaxed DiFranco, who moved to the Bywater neighborhood of New Orleans the same year.

A transition from thriving in a bustling urban environment to the remoteness of her Louisiana home, which she shares with her 15-year-old daughter and 11-year old son, altered DiFranco's perspective. Today, DiFranco is prone to discussing the consciousness of rocks, plants and wildlife as easily as reproductive freedom. This spiritual awareness and a grounded observance of modern America presents both lyrically and musically on Unprecedented Sh!t, which seamlessly blends organic instrumental and vocal tracks with dissonant, warped synth effects.

DiFranco is unafraid to talk about aging and contemplating new ways to make music, now that she has finished a 23-album "series" of her life thus far. She is, of course, "an artist ‘til I die," so there is no risk that Unprecedented Sh!t is the last we will hear of DiFranco.

Ahead of the release of Unprecedented Sh!t, Ani DiFranco spoke with GRAMMY.com about her latest album, her Broadway debut, and a career of DIY achievements.

You have released 22 albums before this, which is a huge body of work for any artist. How is Unprecedented Sh!t a continuation of those ideas and stories, and how does it diverge?

In some sense it’s a continuation, and in another sense it’s a divergence in any of my records. There’s a sort of sonic divergence when you’re working with [producer] BJ [Burton], obviously. All my albums are unique in and of themselves, some veer more personal while some veer more political. Sometimes I’m more inward looking, and sometimes more outward looking.

I think we all have these different moments in our life that we move through. On this album, there was a lot of looking at my society, my culture, and speaking to things bigger than I.

I feel like I shouldn’t say this, but I wonder if it’s the last in a series.

What series is that?

The 23 albums series in the life and times of Ani D. I’m 53 pushing 54,  and I hate to make any statements about my farewell tour or anything, but I feel less motivated to write songs the way I have been. It’s a mode I’ve thoroughly explored. These days, I’m working on a theater piece and writing songs towards a theatrical production.

I’m always creating and inventing in my mind, but there’s definitely an itch to change the mediums.

There’s a lot of dissonant sounds, especially in the two tracks "Baby Roe" and "Unprecedented Sh!t." There's a sense of things falling apart, and that the world is driving you to the edge. Tell me about the state of mind you were in when you wrote those songs.

The reason I wanted to work with BJ is because he lives in world of machines, [and has] an immense facility with machines I know nothing about. After so much making, recording and producing my own records, I have longed to incorporate the noisiness of modern life, and the presence of machines in our lives. I couldn’t do that on my own.

In this modern age, the playing of instruments is just one spice, one ingredient to use in modern recording. There are so many ways to make sounds, put together tracks. With BJ, I was able to explore other worlds. So inherently, through us and the process, this sort of anxious, punishing, frenetic noise of the world comes in. The tenor of life in this world right now expressed itself in the music and recordings, balanced with moments of deep quiet and retreat.

The super dissonant, chaotic sounds BJ created from my guitar [are] really extraordinary. I would make recordings of just me and my guitar, and I overdub a few things — like me playing percussion, or vocal overdubs. He just manipulated [those sounds] in his spaceship, surrounded by buttons, toggles and dials, to create the soundscapes but the raw materials were extremely organic.

The only thing not manipulated is my voice.

On "New Bible," you sing "Our roots are meant to be interwoven" and that "men should stand down when women give birth." Tell me about your view of women, their role as leaders and mothers, and whether your views have changed over time.

I think that my views haven’t changed in that I feel differently, but I understand more in terms of reproductive freedom for women. It’s an essential civil right, the centerpiece of what it means to be free as a woman in society. As I get older, I understand with my full being that consciousness supersedes the body. Our spirit bodes and re-embodies, and this is one of many lives, identities and stories, and essentially me and you are one being. We are God, you and I and every living thing. Women are agents of creation. I wrote a song, "Play God," a few years ago: "you don’t get to play God man, I do". I’m literally the creator in this situation.

You have to respect creation and agents of creation, such as women. I speak to it in "New Bible" and in "Baby Roe," that we need to step back a minute from patriarchal religious dogma, from political debate, and look at what it is to be alive. It is not the body. Consciousness is the spirit, the soul, is God, and is light, and that is eternal. So, there!

Did performing as Persephone in "Hadestown" on Broadway have an impact on the music or themes on this album, in which you sing about hell and the sanctity of women, or was there just an organic alignment?

I relate very much to the character, and I have been involved in the trajectory of "Hadestown" since the beginning, since it was a gleam in Anaïs Mitchell's eye, so it’s very cool to come back into the fray after all these years to perform the part on stage. 

There are two couples in the musical: Orpheus and Eurydice, the young starry-eyed lovers, and Hades and Persephone, the old couple, married for eons as Gods. They’ve been through it all together, there’s a real push and pull tension between them, and Persephone is the bestower of life on Earth, joy, and bounty, while Hades is the captain of industry and the underworld — which represents the hell of the modern world and its enslavement of humankind. 

It’s a prescient modern take on Greek mythology. The relationship between her and Hades, you know they don’t ride into the sunset, but there’s hope – like, "we’ll try again next year" – and after being married for 20 years [to music professional Mike Napolitano], I very much relate to that need to renew one’s love and one’s relationship.

I’ve been a fan of yours since "Dilate" and so many of your songs are deeply personal to me. Do you have favorites from your earlier albums, or songs of yours that feel deeply necessary to perform live and to revisit frequently?

Certainly there’s a bunch that have risen as favorites for me, mostly because they work live, they’re very playable, and [are] other people’s favorites. Some that don’t work well live because they’re too slow, or sad, or too something, are my secret favorites. Those are "Hypnotized," "Hour Follows Hour," "Albacore" or "The Atom," which is epic at 10 minutes.

There’s a lot of allusion to nature on this album, which is quite different to those earlier albums in which you were in bars, on trains and on the road. Tell me about how your connection to the land informs who you are, how you live, and your perspective.

It’s been a long time coming. I’ve been a city kid most of my life and I’ve been rapt with the human drama therein, but like many humans, it gets old. The land —  all the forms of consciousness that are not human, all the sentient beings…plants, trees, rocks — is something more profound than human drama.

I live in Louisiana, New Orleans, way, way, way on the edge of town, right on the Mississippi River, which feels both very remote and very New Orleans. It very much feels like home after 20 years now. It’s an immense place, culturally and musically, and I love being surrounded by snakes, owls, the birds on the river: herons, eagles, ducks, egrets. It’s immense and wonderful. Turtles wander by in this big swamp. I really love it there.

You sing "I defy being defined" on "The Thing At Hand." Do you feel that rather than growing into firmer descriptions or identifying labels, you’ve actually shed them instead and is that liberating or confusing?

I feel I’ve always been in the business of shedding labels, but the world is doubling down. I sang about relationships with women and men when I was young, or I sang about my experience as a young woman not wedded to gender being the defining character of a person, or sexual orientation, or race, or blood. I feel like I've always tried to write revolution through just the approach to storytelling and my songs. You cannot hold me down with your preconceived notions of identities and "us and them" and tribe, so I feel like I've always been at this work. And in America, I feel like identity politics has become so fever pitched.

I’m a child of the '70s when identity politics was about asserting identity and waking up culture to the fact that we’re not all middle-aged white dudes, but it’s as though the tool of liberation has become the cage itself. [My children’s book] The Knowing speaks to this: Use identity for whatever purpose it serves to know and find yourself, your tribe, to know you’re not alone but also beware of identity and ending up in a silo, at odds with your fellow humans.

 On 'Little Rope,' Sleater-Kinney Still Wear Their Hearts On Their Sleeves

William Bell, HANSON and Elle King have been added to the lineup for the Recording Academy and GRAMMY Museum's inaugural GRAMMY Hall Of Fame Gala, taking place on May 21, at The Novo in Downtown Los Angeles.

Previously announced performers include Andra Day, Ravyn Lenae, Shinedown and The War and Treaty. The evening will include a red carpet and VIP reception on the Ray Charles Terrace at the GRAMMY Museum followed by a one-of-a-kind concert at The Novo. The Gala will also pay tribute to iconic record label Atlantic Records. The evening will be hosted by veteran CBS broadcast journalist Anthony Mason, who will be joined by Michael Sticka, President/CEO of the GRAMMY Museum, Harvey Mason jr., CEO of the Recording Academy, and Julie Greenwald, chairperson and CEO of Atlantic Records Group. 

Performers will pay tribute to the 2024 GRAMMY Hall Of Fame inducted recordings. Andra Day will perform a song from Lauryn Hill's The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill; William Bell will perform his song "You Don't Miss Your Water"; The War and Treaty will perform Charley Pride's "Kiss An Angel Good Morning"; Elle King will perform Wanda Jackson's "Let's Have A Party." HANSON will perform the Doobie Brothers' "What A Fool Believes"; Ravyn Lenae will perform Roberta Flack's "Killing Me Softly;" and Shinedown will perform Led Zeppelin's "Stairway To Heaven." Tickets are on sale to the general public and more information about the GRAMMY Hall Of Fame Gala is available on the website. 

The inaugural Hall Of Fame Gala will honor the 2024 GRAMMY Hall Of Fame inducted recordings on its 50th Anniversary, including De La Soul's 3 Feet High And Rising, Guns N' Roses' Appetite For Destruction, Buena Vista Social Club's Buena Vista Social Club, and Lauryn Hill's The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill, as well as recordings by Donna Summer, Charley Pride, Wanda Jackson, Kid Ory's Creole Orchestra, the Doobie Brothers, and William Bell. 

This year's show will be produced by longtime Executive Producer of the GRAMMY Awards, Ken Ehrlich, along with Chantel Sausedo and Ron Basile. Musical Direction by globally renowned producer and keyboardist Greg Phillinganes. The Gala is presented by City National Bank. 

An online auction is currently underway alongside the Hall Of Fame Gala, featuring a vast collection of guitars signed by an array of major artists including Taylor Swift, Dua Lipa, Billie Eilish, Olivia Rodrigo, Joni Mitchell, Billy Joel, and many others, as well as Platinum tickets to the 2025 GRAMMY Awards and more. Proceeds will benefit the GRAMMY Museum. Click HERE for more info. 

The GRAMMY Hall Of Fame was established by the Recording Academy's National Trustees in 1973. The inducted recordings are selected annually by a special member committee of eminent and knowledgeable professionals from all branches of the recording arts with final ratification by the Recording Academy's National Board of Trustees. With 10 new titles, the Hall currently totals 1,152 inducted recordings in the GRAMMY Hall Of Fame. Recipients will receive an official certificate from the Recording Academy and GRAMMY Museum. See the full list of past inducted recordings here.

GRAMMY Hall Of Fame Gala 2024 Performers Announced

It was a big week for music in Memphis. The 45th annual Blues Music Awards, a top honor in the genre, were handed out on Thursday, May 9, in Memphis, Tenn. in a ceremony sponsored by the Recording Academy. The awards were the capstone to several days of blues-related events, including the annual Blues Hall of Fame induction ceremony the day before.  

An audience of approximately 1,000 — including industry professionals, fans, and some of the genre's biggest artists — packed the grand main exhibit hall of the recently renovated Renasant Convention Center for the BMAs banquet, produced by the Memphis-based Blues Foundation. With 25 awards and more than a dozen performances, the awards show, hosted by broadcast veteran Tavis Smiley, often felt more like a homecoming than an industry event.

Read below for four key takeaways from this year's Blues Music Awards and Blue Hall of Fame Ceremony.

Mississippi's Blues Roots Remain Strong

Located right next to Memphis, Mississippi is home to one of the country's four GRAMMY Museums and is widely regarded as one of the birthplaces — if not the birthplace — of the blues. The state has nurtured some of the genre's greatest talents, including Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, and B.B. King. The Magnolia State's deep connection to the blues was evident during the awards, with Mississippi mainstays and GRAMMY winners Bobby Rush and Christone "Kingfish" Ingram among the top winners. 

Despite a 65-year age difference, Rush and Ingram share a deep devotion to the blues. At 90 years old, Rush, an incredibly spry chitlin' circuit road warrior who has re-emerged in recent years as perhaps one the blues' biggest stars, won Best Soul Blues Album for All My Love for You and his second B.B. King Entertainer of the Year award. Ingram, only 25 years old and already a GRAMMY winner for Best Contemporary Blues Album in 2022, was the night's top winner, taking home four awards: Album of the Year and Contemporary Blues Album of the Year for Live in London, Contemporary Blues Male Artist, and Instrumentalist-Guitar.

Other multiple award winners included another artist originally from Mississippi, 79-year-old Chicago guitarist John Primer, who won Traditional Blues Male Artist and Traditional Blues Album for Teardrops for Magic Slim, and Texas' Ruthie Foster, who captured top vocalist honors and won Song of the Year for "What Kind Of Fool," co-written with Hadden Sayers and Scottie Miller.

The Blues Need To Be Seen To Be Heard

Though the BMAs largely honor recorded works, the show itself emphasized that the blues are a genre best experienced live. The ceremony, which ran about four hours (historically on the shorter side for this event), was packed full of performances, most running longer than your typical awards show slots. 

Highlights included the opening set by emerging artist nominee Candice Ivory, who performed selections from her BMA-nominated album When the Levee Breaks: The Music of Memphis Minnie, backed by keyboardist Ben Levin and guitarist William Lee Ellis, who also played songs from his album Ghost Hymns, a nominee for Best Acoustic Album.

Another Mississippi artist, powerhouse bandleader Castro Coleman, known as Mr. Sipp, who has one GRAMMY nomination and an appearance on a GRAMMY-winning Count Basie Orchestra album, brought the crowd to their feet early with his gospel-fueled segment. To cement his Best Guitarist win, Ingram delivered a blistering performance with his band, wading into the audience for one of his beautifully precise, soaring solos.

There was so much music to be heard that it spilled out into the streets. Most nights following BMA-related events, fans and fellow artists could be found in the clubs on Beale Street, the famous Home of the Blues, for showcases and impromptu jam sessions. These were highlighted by the 10th annual Down In the Basement fundraiser for the Blues Foundation on Wednesday. Organized and hosted by Big Llou Johnson, a blues musician and host of Sirius XM's B.B. King's Bluesville channel, the show featured appearances by Mr. Sipp, GRAMMY nominees Southern Avenue, and more.

Honoring The Blues' Past

Among the other events that made up BMA week was the Blues Hall of Fame Induction ceremony, held on May 8 at Memphis' Cannon Center for the Performing Arts before a crowd of about 200, including past inductees Bobby Rush and Taj Mahal. Hosted by artists Gaye Adegbalola (Saffire — the Uppity Blues Women), GRAMMY winner Dom Flemons (Carolina Chocolate Drops), and veteran blues radio deejay Bill Wax, the observance saw the induction of seven artists, five blues singles, one album, a book, and a blues academic into the Hall of Fame.

Highlights from the evening included Alligator Records head Bruce Iglauer's humor-filled induction of Chicago house stompers Lil' Ed & the Blues Imperials in the performers category; the heartfelt introduction of the late folk singer Odetta by her friend Maria Muldaur and the emotional acceptance by Odetta's daughter, Michelle Esrick; and former National Endowment for the Humanities chairman William R. Ferris, inducted as a non-performer, delivering a circuitous-but-engrossing recounting of his life documenting blues music and culture.

Bringing The Blues To Life 

Taj Mahal stands in front of the exhibit featuring his own hologram. | Photo: Kimberly Horton

One of the non-award related highlights of the week was the opening of a new exhibit at the Blues Foundation's Blues Hall of Fame, also on May 8, which introduced a high-tech element to the down-home genre. Musician Taj Mahal was on hand the day before for the unveiling of a cutting-edge AI-powered hologram of himself that acts as a virtual tour guide for the Half of Fame, allowing visitors to interact with the blues great. 

This hologram, only the second exhibit of its kind in America (the first is in the Folk Americana Roots Hall of Fame in Boston), uses Holobox, a new technology from Holoconnects, to render a life-like image that can answer questions, talk about exhibits, and play instruments. Taj Mahal, who had to sit and talk for several hours for the technology to scan his likeness and voice, is the first artist to receive the virtual treatment from the Blues Foundation. Bobby Rush and Keb' Mo' are expected to be added later.

Explore the full list of 2024 BMA winners below to celebrate the artists keeping the blues alive and discover who took home the top honors this year. 

2024 BMA Winners

B.B. King Entertainer of the Year

Bobby Rush

Album of the Year

Live In London, Christone "Kingfish" Ingram

Band of the Year

Nick Moss Band

Song of the Year

"What Kind Of Fool," written by Ruthie Foster, Hadden Sayers & Scottie Miller

Best Emerging Artist Album

The Right Man, D.K. Harrell

Acoustic Blues Album

Raw Blues 1, Doug MacLeod

Blues Rock Album

Blood Brothers, Mike Zito/ Albert Castiglia

Contemporary Blues Album

Live In London, Christone "Kingfish" Ingram

Soul Blues Album

All My Love For You, Bobby Rush

Traditional Blues Album

Teardrops for Magic Slim, John Primer

Acoustic Blues Artist

Keb' Mo'

Blues Rock Artist

Mike Zito

Contemporary Blues Female Artist

Danielle Nicole

Contemporary Blues Male Artist

Christone "Kingfish" Ingram

Soul Blues Female Artist

Annika Chambers

Soul Blues Male Artist

John Nemeth

Traditional Blues Female Artist (Koko Taylor Award)

Sue Foley

Traditional Blues Male Artist

John Primer

Instrumentalist – Bass

Bob Stroger

Instrumentalist – Drums

Kenny "Beedy Eyes" Smith

Instrumentalist – Guitarist

Christone "Kingfish" Ingram

Instrumentalist – Harmonica

Jason Ricci

Instrumentalist – Horn

Vanessa Collier

Instrumentalist – Piano (Pinetop Perkins Award)

Kenny "Blues Boss" Wayne

Instrumentalist – Vocals

Ruthie Foster

Washington D.C. Chapter Dinner & Conversation Answers "Can We Have Rhythm Without the Blues?"

Chief Keef fans have been awaiting a sequel to his influential mixtape Almighty So since he released it in 2013. The project came out in the midst of a magnificent and experimental run for Keef, when he was changing his style seemingly at will from Almighty's almost avant-garde soundscapes to woozy, autotuned melodies (Bang Pt. 2) to stoic street tales (Back From the Dead).

Keef, now 28, has been well aware of the anticipation for a follow-up to Almighty So, teasing the project since 2019. Five years later, it's finally here — but it might not quite be what fans were expecting.

In keeping with Keef's mercurial and exploratory artistic nature, Almighty So 2 has very little to do with its predecessor, save that comedian Michael Blackson does skits on both. In fact, Keef tells GRAMMY.com that the title of the project does not mean that he views it as a sequel to Almighty So.

"There's no connection at all," he asserts. Almighty So is his nickname, and one of his many alter egos; it stems from "Sosa," the Scarface-inspired nickname he's been using since the beginning of his career. The title, he says, "is not just a project that I dropped years ago. It's me. I'm still almighty."

Almighty So 2, released May 10, is indeed very different. It boasts a Keef who is nearly free of vocal doublings and ad libs, ready to let his voice clearly be heard on a wide range of subjects, including some introspective and emotional looks at himself, going all the way back to his childhood.

Several days before the project's release, GRAMMY.com caught up with Keef while he was at home in Los Angeles. Below, the Chicago-born rapper breaks down the album's lyrics and music, its most surprising guest appearance, how he views his own legacy, and his return to his hometown for the first time in over a decade.

This conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

You've been talking about this record since 2019, and originally you were saying it's going to have a lot of melody. The album I heard is very different from that. Can you tell me how and why the vision changed?

I just wanted to do something I never did. A couple of songs is stuff that you probably would never hear me do.

What's different about those songs?

Just more rapping about real things instead of flexing or talking about cars and weed. I'm rapping about real stuff in my life — in life, period.

"Believe" is like that. 

Oh yeah, "Believe," I forgot about that. You really know these songs. Okay, that's dope.

I heard that song as being about wanting and trying to change. Can you tell me about writing that and deciding to open up a little bit?

When I was making that beat, it gave me that feeling of, let some stuff out. That's all.

There's a line on there that really grabbed me. You're talking about growing up and you say you had to be an "evil kid." The word "evil" really struck me. What do you mean by
"evil"?

Because I was always smart — brilliant, intelligent. My circumstances had to be different, though. There wasn't a way for me to really show…I had to do the streets thing. I had to be a gangbanger. I had to grow up doing all that stuff instead of my potential that I know that I have, that I'm using doing all this stuff like designing. I can do everything. Really, literally. I probably could fly a plane, too.

Before I get into my ideas about it, what's different about your rapping on this album?

I feel like I'm just old. I'm 28, I'm finna be 29 now, man. I'm not the same young boy that grew up in Chicago on 54th and 61st. I guess you can call it growth.

I still got some stuff on there like the regular Sosa — the turn up, the fight-in-the-club or whatever you want to call it. Jump around, mosh pit music. I still got that. 

I was thinking more about just the sound of your rapping. There was almost no doubling, almost no ad libs. Your voice is very clear. Can you tell me about that creative decision?

I haven't been doubling like that. I don't know why I stopped it. You're right, I wanted to be more clear. 

Once I do a song, if I didn't do the ad libs, it must have not needed ad libs. When I do ad libs, it's like, I gotta do these ad libs. And if a song doesn't have ad libs on it, probably I can't really say the stuff that I want to say on the ad libs, or I didn't know how to put it. So I just said, scratch the ad libs and it's good like that. It's perfect. You don't need it, or the doubles. 

You have two songs on this record, "Runner" and "1,2,3," where you do that Dipset thing of talking back to the vocal sample. Why'd you do that?

I grew up on Juelz [Santana] and Cam'ron and Jim Jones. On 61st, we was a clique called Dipset, which comes from them. That's where I come from, so that's what I know. I guess I'm still living that right there.

Tell me about making beats for this album. There was some sampling in there, which is something you haven't done too much of.

I started sampling in probably 2019, 2020, or something like that. A lot of my producer friends, even my rapper friends, be like, "I love the way you sample. Damn, how do you sample like that?" Even though sometimes, I'll just let a sample play — it won't even be a chopped-up sample. 

If you get a beat from someone else, do you go in and add stuff to it?

Yeah. I can't take a beat and not put my stuff on it. Because it might be a dope beat, but if I feel like it need a couple more snares or a snare roll or some extra high hats or a bridge, I'll add my stuff in.

The album has some introspective lyrics, but it's also very funny.

I want to have some fun with it. A lot of people just drop projects and be regular degular. I wanted to do different. 

Like one song on the album, it takes four minutes to come on. It's just a beat and there's a skit playing of a dude in heaven talking. It's for car rides or trips. I don't know, I just wanted to do something different than what's regularly done all the time.

What's the connection between this album and the first Almighty So? Why call it Almighty So 2?

There's no connection at all. It's just, Almighty So, that's me. It's not just a project that I dropped years ago — it's me. I'm still Almighty So. I might not call myself that all the time, but it's forever me because when I did come out, it's something that I made and I stuck with it. 

It's just a name that everybody know. It's going to go down in the books. Forever, I'm Almighty So. I just had to do a number two, as in growth. It's the growth version of me.

I'm trying to display that I'm not the same 16, 17, 18-year-old that was running around Chicago with a gun on his hip. I'm far away in Los Angeles, California in a big, stupid-ass house with nine bathrooms and eight bedrooms. I got 12 cars outside my house, and they all mine. I don't have to have that gun on my hip. I ain't gotta watch my back all the time. 

I'm not the same. I'm a different guy. I feel like I'm better now than I ever was. I'm a better individual: the way I think, the way I talk. I'm more talkative now. At first, I wasn't even f—ing talking, bro. At first, you couldn't get me to say s— but a couple words.

When was the last time you listened to the first Almighty So?

I don't listen to that thing. Everybody else around me do. From friends to fans, everybody still listen to it, but I don't listen to it, barely ever. Every blue moon, I might end up playing it somehow. Because don't forget, I was listening to that s— nonstop when I made it. And I had to perform a lot of it too. So I know it by heart. I don't need to listen to it.

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You have your first performance in Chicago in many years coming up at the Lyrical Lemonade Summer Smash in June. How are you feeling about it?

It's been a while, man. I ain't gonna lie, it's gonna be like I'm a tourist when I go there. 

It's been a long, long time. It's been like 11, 12 years since I touched the pavement in Chicago, or Illinois, period. I'm ready. I know it's going to be a big thing. A lot of new people probably think I'm a ghost. There probably be teachers like, "Yeah, he went to this school," [and the students will be like,] "No, no, he ain't real." 

So a lot of people are going to be excited, just knowing I'm from there and I ain't been there in so long. People that's not in even Chicago — all them surrounding cities gonna show up [too], because Sosa has not been home. And they know it's gonna be big.

Given what happened back in 2015, when the cops shut down your hologram's concert, are you worried that the authorities will be looking for an excuse to shut it down?

Hopefully they won't shut it down. I ain't been there in 11 years. I ain't done nothing to no-motherf—ing-body, man. I ain't in no cases, no RICOs, no murders, none of that s—. Leave me the f— alone, man. 

I've been chilling, making clothes and making music. Don't shut me down. And even if they did, I don't care. I'm going home. Back to L.A. I go. At least y'all know that I tried.

From the beginning of your career, you've had this association with the word "turbulence." You use Turbo as an alter ego.

[Laughs] How do you know all this? This is some Nardwuar s— right now, man.

When did that start? Do you remember the first time you were like, "Oh, that word, that's me?"

You said, when did it start? It's my alter egos I just make in my damn head. That's all. I'm versatile, so I never make the same sounding s—. Every song you listen to of mine, it's not going to be like, "That sounds like the last one I just played."  

I just got my alter egos, and I just make names. And then Turbulence, Turbo, that just came with one of my alter egos from 2017. Every other year I got a new name and a new ego.

Lately I haven't done it, though. I've been chilling, on some grown man ish. I feel like [making alter egos is] more the young Sosa. Like I said, this was in 2017 when I made that name. I haven't really been doing it lately. No new aliases.

You talked earlier about designing clothes and doing other creative stuff. When you're making art or graphics, or designing clothes, what feels the same as making music to you, and what feels different?

It's the exact same thing. S—, just like I make a beat, making a shirt takes the same creativity. It's just in a different form. Instead of melodies, you're using pictures and s—. You're drawing stuff. Instead of drawing that melody in FL Studio, you're drawing an angel for a shirt.

It's the exact same thing. Even the colors. The colors are like the EQ on the beat or on the song — it brings out the light in the stuff. 

So yeah, it's actually the same thing to me. And I've been doing this same s—. All the clothing, the beats, I've been doing the exact same thing that I'm doing now since 2008. How many years is that? That's a long time.

Like the Glory Boys logo: I made that logo in late 2009. I was what, 13, 14? I was doing this s— since I was 10, 11. It started when my momma bought me a computer. She bought me a computer when I was like 6. And then I was doing unbelievable things, unimaginable things. 

When I was doing that, I knew that this is my calling. Like, you real good with computers, if you're not good with nothing else. Anything with a screen, I could do it my sleep. If I show you the s— I can do, you'd be like, what in the f—? I'm talking coding — I can code some s— up. Your mind would be blown.

One of the things that does connect this album to the first Almighty So is you have Michael Blackson come back. Why?

Because he was on the first one. I'm just like, I got a skit or two for him. I got a couple of different skits from a couple different people. I got Fabo from D4L on there. He's on "Almighty" the song, talking. I got Donterio from my city, a funny dude I mess with. He be like, "On baby, on baby" — he famous for saying that. 

I got Michael Blackson. I wanted to make it fun and funny, so it ain't just like you're riding around listening to regular music. I wanted to make it a type of movie, but just in the music form. 

One of the guest appearances that really got my attention was Tierra Whack. I thought she was great.

Yeah, me and Tierra, we're real friends and we talk. And I love the way she do everything, so I had to put her on my s—, man. Just on some random s— — like, they won't expect no damn Tierra Whack, you know? So I had to do that. And I got my little weird ways, I'll tell you that.

I wouldn't have guessed she would be on this album.

Yeah, I know you wouldn't. Nobody would. Chief Keef and Tierra Whack? How and where and when? I wanted her to do something different than what she do. I was like, "I got this song I want you to do, but it ain't nothing like you always do. It's different." And she's like, "Hell yeah, come on, let's do it." That's my dog, for real for real.

A lot of critics talk about how influential you are. Are you aware of people saying that stuff about you?

Everywhere! If I had 500 M's every time [I heard that], I'd be Jeff Bezos. The f—? I think I'd probably be bigger. I would be more rich!

I be hearing that a lot, though, man. I be tired of hearing that s—. I be like, we know. Me, you, and God know that. It's okay. Let people do what they do, man. I was a big fan of Gucci [Mane] and Lil Wayne. Still am. So if I got people who love me like that, s—, man. 

I used to get mad about it, but I don't give a f—. I'm a big fan of those two boys I just said. Even to this day, we still ride around listening to the old Gucci. If you get in our car and we on tour, all you going to hear is Gucci Mane from 2006, 7, 8, and 9, 2010, 2011. And we still even sometimes take our raps [from that]. The old Lil Wayne, I still even rap like that. If you listen to "Jesus," I got his flow — some Lil Wayne, the old Wayne, inspiration. So I guess I inspire, the way they inspire me.

Are you still determined to change your style frequently? That used to be a thing about you: every year you'd have a whole new approach to music.

You hip, bro. You smart as hell, I ain't gonna lie. That's why I'm talking to you like I am. But anyway, you're right, I don't necessarily. 

How I am, though, I never do the same s—, like I told you. You'll never say, "This sounds exactly the same as the other one." I probably got, like, two songs [that sound alike], and that's just if I'm messing with the same producer. 

So I can't say that every year I take that approach. But I guess every day I take that approach, or any time I pick up the damn microphone. I'm just trying to think, I want to do something different, or at least try.

Do you think of yourself primarily as a rapper? A producer? A person who's good with computers?

What I say is I got angles like Kurt. You know Kurt Angle? Jack of all trades. 

Call me Jack, don't call me Sosa. I guess I got a new alias today — we made one.

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