Hey, daddy, daddy! Sam Smith and Kim Petras took the 2023 GRAMMYs to the body shop with a transgressive performance of their smash collaboration "Unholy."

Surrounded by long-haired acolytes in identical red sheaths, Smith kicked off the performance in an outfit of latex and a devil-horned top hat before Petras made her grand entrance in a giant cage guarded by a trio of she-devils. "Mummy don’t know daddy’s getting hot/ At the body shop, doin’ something unholy," the duo belted in hellish harmony as a wall of fire erupted on stage behind Petras’ personal prison.

The performance came shortly after the close pals accepted the GRAMMY for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance, making Petras the very first trans woman to ever win in the category. In her giddy acceptance speech, the German pop princess gave a heartfelt shoutout to her late friend and collaborator SOPHIE, who helped pave the way with her own GRAMMY nomination in 2019 for Best Dance/Electronic Album for her album Oil of Every Pearl Un-Insides.

Speaking to the Recording Academy after she was nominated, Petras reflected on her place in the long line of trans GRAMMY nominees and winners, dating back to Wendy Carlos and, belatedly, Jackie Shane in the 1960s and ‘70s. "I’m proud," she told GRAMMY.com. "I just feel like they’ve all kind of been overlooked a lot, and never really got what they deserved regarding their influence…It’s cool to be in the same category as those artists that I really look up to."

Upon its September release, "Unholy" rocketed to the top of the charts all over the world, helping Smith and Petras become the first publicly non-binary and trans artists, respectively, to top the Billboard Hot 100. 

The industrial dance track also provided a major breakthrough moment for Petras. Not only was "Unholy" her first No. 1, it was also her very first entry on the Billboard chart and first platinum-certified song by the Recording Industry Association of America.

Since receiving their joint nomination, Smith has released their fourth studio album Gloria and Petras has followed "Unholy" up with singles "If Jesus Was a Rock Star" and "brrr" in anticipation for her major-label debut full-length on Republic Records.

Check out the complete list of winners and nominees at the 2023 GRAMMYs

"Honestly, I feel like a zaddy," Omar Apollo says with a roguish grin, "because I'm 6'5" so, like, you can run up in my arms and stay there, you know what I mean?"

As a bonafide R&B sensation and one of the internet’s favorite boyfriends, Apollo is likely used to the labels, attention and online swooning that come with modern fame. But in this instance, there’s a valid reason for asking about his particular brand of "zaddyhood": he’s been turned into a Bratz doll.

In the middle of June, the popular toy company blasted  a video to its nearly 5 million social media followers showing off the singer as a real-life Bratz Boy — the plastic version draped in a long fur coat (shirtless, naturally), with a blinged-out cross necklace and matching silver earrings as he belts out his 2023 single "3 Boys" from a smoke-covered stage.

The video, which was captioned "Zaddy coded," promptly went viral, helped along by an amused Apollo reposting the clip to his own Instagram Story. "It was so funny," he adds. "And it's so accurate; that's literally how my shows go. It made me look so glamorous, I loved it."

The unexpected viral moment came with rather auspicious timing, considering Apollo is prepping for the release of his hotly anticipated sophomore album. God Said No arrives June 28 via Warner Records.

In fact, the star is so busy with the roll-out that, on the afternoon of our interview, he’s FaceTiming from the back of a car. The day prior, he’d filmed the music video for "Done With You," the album’s next single. Now he’s headed to the airport to jet off to Paris, where he’ll be photographed front row at the LOEWE SS25 men’s runway show in between Sabrina Carpenter and Mustafa — the latter of whom is one of the few collaborators featured on God Said No. 

Apollo’s trusted co-writer and producer, Teo Halm, is also joining the conversation from his home studio in L.A. In between amassing credits for Beyoncé (The Lion King: The Gift), Rosalía and J Balvin (the Latin GRAMMY-winning "Con Altura"), SZA ("Notice Me" and "Open Arms" featuring Travis Scott) and others, the 25-year-old virtuoso behind the boards had teamed up with Apollo on multiple occasions. Notably, the two collabed on "Evergreen (You Didn’t Deserve Me At All)," which helped Apollo score his nomination for Best New Artist at the 2023 GRAMMYs. 

In the wake of that triumph, Apollo doubled down on their creative chemistry by asking Halm to executive produce God Said No. (The producer is also quick to second his pal’s magnetic mystique: "Don't get it twisted, he's zaddy, for sure.") 

Apollo bares his soul like never before across the album’s 14 tracks,  as he processes the bitter end of a two-year relationship with an unnamed paramour. The resulting portrait of heartbreak is a new level of emotional exposure for a singer already known for his unguarded vulnerability and naked candor. (He commissioned artist Doron Langberg to paint a revealing portrait of him for the cover of his 2023 EP Live For Me, and unapologetically included a painting of his erect penis as the back cover of the vinyl release.) 

On lead single "Spite," he’s pulled between longing and resentment in the wake of the break-up over a bouncing guitar riff. Second single "Dispose of Me" finds Apollo heartsick and feeling abandoned as he laments, "It don’t matter if it’s 25 years, 25 months/ It don’t matter if it’s 25 days, it was real love/ We got too much history/ So don’t just dispose of me." 

Elsewhere, the singer offers the stunning admission that "I would’ve married you" on album cut "Life’s Unfair." Then, on the very next song — the bumping, braggadocious "Against Me" — Apollo grapples with the reality that he’s been permanently altered by the love affair while on the prowl for a rebound. "I cannot act like I’m average/ You know that I am the baddest bitch," he proclaims on the opening verse, only to later admit, "I’ve changed so much, but have you heard?/ I can’t move how I used to."

Given the personal subject matter filling God Said No — not to mention the amount of acclaim he earned with Ivory — it would be understandable if Apollo felt a degree of pressure or anxiety when it came to crafting his sophomore studio set. But according to the singer, that was entirely not the case.

"I feel like I wouldn’t be able to make art if I felt pressure," he says. "Why would I be nervous about going back and making more music? If anything, I'm more excited and my mind is opened up in a whole other way and I've learned so much."

In order to throw his entire focus into the album’s creation, Apollo invited Halm to join him in London. The duo set up shop in the famous Abbey Road Studios, where the singer often spent 12- to 13-hour days attempting to exorcize his heartbreak fueled by a steady stream of Aperol spritzes and cigarettes.

The change of scenery infused the music with new sonic possibilities, like the kinetic synths and pulsating bass line that set flight to "Less of You." Apollo and Halm agree that the single was directly inspired by London’s unique energy.

"It's so funny because we were out there in London, but we weren't poppin' out at all," the Halm says. "Our London scene was really just, like, studio, food. Omar was a frickin' beast. He was hitting the gym every day…. But it was more like feeding off the culture on a day-to-day basis. Like, literally just on the walk to the studio or something as simple as getting a little coffee. I don't think that song would've happened in L.A."

Poetry played a surprisingly vital role in the album’s creation as well, with Apollo littering the studio with collections by "all of the greats," including the likes of Ocean Vuong, Victoria Chang, Philip Larkin, Alan Ginsberg, Mary Oliver and more.

"Could you imagine making films, but never watching a film?" the singer posits, turning his appreciation for the written art form into a metaphor about cinema. "Imagine if I never saw [films by] the greats, the beauty of words and language, and how it's manipulated and how it flows. So I was so inspired." 

Perhaps a natural result of consuming so much poetic prose, Apollo was also led to experiment with his own writing style. While on a day trip with his parents to the Palace of Versailles, he wrote a poem that ultimately became the soaring album highlight "Plane Trees," which sends the singer’s voice to new, shiver-inducing heights. 

"I'd been telling Teo that I wanted to challenge myself vocally and do a power ballad," he says. "But it wasn't coming and we had attempted those songs before. And I was exhausted with writing about love; I was so sick of it. I was like, Argh, I don't want to write anymore songs with this person in my mind." 

Instead, the GRAMMY nominee sat on the palace grounds with his parents, listening to his mom tell stories about her childhood spent in Mexico. He challenged himself to write about the majestic plane tree they were sitting under in order to capture the special moment. 

Back at the studio, Apollo’s dad asked Halm to simply "make a beat" and, soon enough, the singer was setting his poem to music. (Later, Mustafa’s hushed coda perfected the song’s denouement as the final piece of the puzzle.) And if Apollo’s dad is at least partially responsible for how "Plane Trees" turned out, his mom can take some credit for a different song on the album — that’s her voice, recorded beneath the same plane tree, on the outro of delicate closer "Glow." 

Both the artist and the producer ward off any lingering expectations that a happy ending will arrive by the time "Glow" fades to black, however. "The music that we make walks a tightrope of balancing beauty and tragedy," Halm says. "It's always got this optimism in it, but it's never just, like, one-stop shop happy. It's always got this inevitable pain that just life has. 

"You know, even if maybe there wasn't peace in the end for Omar, or if that wasn't his full journey with getting through that pain, I think a lot of people are dealing with broken hearts who it really is going to help," the producer continues. "I can only just hope that the music imparts leaving people with hope."

 Apollo agrees that God Said No contains a "hopeful thread," even if his perspective on the project remains achingly visceral. Did making the album help heal his broken heart? "No," he says with a sad smile on his face. "But it is proof of pain. And it’s a beautiful thing that is immortalized now, forever. 

"One day, I can look back at it and be like, Wow, what a beautiful thing I experienced. But yeah, no, it didn't help me," he says with a laugh. 

Before launching their own solo career, Sam Smith had already teased their pop prowess by guesting on two bonafide dance classics, Disclosure's deep house anthem "Latch" in 2012 and Naughty Boy's two-step garage throwback "La La La" in 2013. And upon debuting their own work in 2014 with In The Lonely Hour, Smith instantly cemented themselves as the master of the heartbreak ballad — and one of pop's new pioneers.

Self-described as the "diary from a lonely 21-year-old," the record was inspired by the love Smith felt toward an unnamed man which, it seems fair to say, wasn't exactly reciprocated. "I don't have that many sad things going on in my life and it was the only thing that was really affecting me last year," they explained to Digital Spy ahead of In The Lonely Hour's release. "So, it's my way of defining what is love, and how unrequited love is just as painful, just as powerful, as what we call 'normal' love." And audiences both in their homeland and across the pond immediately latched on to its overarching theme.

Largely produced by hitmaking extraordinaire Jimmy Napes (Clean Bandit, Mary J. Blige), In The Lonely Hour reached No. 1 in the UK and No. 2 on the Billboard 200, spawned five hit singles, and, in an era when the album format was commercially struggling, sold a remarkable 8.5 million copies across the globe. And alongside the chart success, the sold-out tours, and the four GRAMMY wins on the same night, the blockbuster LP also became a force for good, and a force for change, within the LGBTQIA+ community.

A decade on from its stateside release (June 17), we take a look at why In The Lonely Hour was such a landmark album for the music industry as a whole, but especially for a new queer generation.

It Made GRAMMY History

Smith famously put their foot in their mouth while picking up Best Original Song at the 2016 Academy Awards for Bond theme "Writing's On the Wall," wrongly declaring — much to Milk screenwriter Dustin Lance Black's disdain — that they were the first ever openly gay Oscar winner. However, the Brit can lay claim to being an LGBTQIA+ trailblazer at the GRAMMYs.

The year before his acceptance speech faux pas, Smith became the first member of the LGBTQIA+ community to win Best New Artist. The singer also won Best Pop Vocal Album for In the Lonely Hour, while "Stay With Me" was crowned both Record and Song Of The Year. (Eight years later, Smith then made history again as the first ever non-binary GRAMMY winner when their Kim Petras collaboration "Unholy" scooped Best Pop Duo/Group Performance in 2023.)

The use of pronouns has played a big part in Smith's career. And though they officially announced their they/them change in 2019, the singer refused to commit to a particular gender on their debut album. While In The Lonely Hour was based on their infatuation with an uninterested man, the Brit purposely left things ambiguous, as they explained to Fader at the time of its release.

"[It's] important to me that my music reaches everybody. I've made [it] so that it could be about anything and everybody — whether it's a guy, a female or a goat — and everybody can relate to that." This inclusive approach has also been adapted by several other artists, including singer/songwriter Bruno Major, whonoted how Smith's material "can be listened to by anybody of any sexuality and gender and still apply."

While Smith kept all pronouns neutral on record, they were far more specific when it came to In The Lonely Hour's visuals. In the tearjerking video for "Lay Me Down," a flashback shows the Brit getting hitched to their boyfriend in the same church where the latter is later laid to rest. Although gay marriage had been made legal in the UK a year prior to the video's 2015 release, it was still illegal for same-sex couples to wed within the Church of England.

In a Facebook message posted to coincide with its premiere, Smith said, "This video shows my dreams that one day gay men and women and transgendered men and women all over the world, like all our straight families and friends, will be able to get married under any roof, in any city, in any town, in any village, in any country." Smith later performed the album's biggest hit, "Stay With Me," in front of President Joe Biden at the 2022 signing of the Respect for Marriage Act.

Before Smith came along, the modern heartbreak ballad — the kind of emotionally devastating anthem that can reduce an entire stadium crowd to a blubbering wreck — had typically been the domain of heterosexual/cis-identifying artists such as Adele and Ed Sheeran.

However, thanks to radio-friendly chart hits such as "Lay Me Down," "Stay With Me," and "I'm Not The Only One," In The Lonely Hour proved mainstream audiences, no matter their sexual orientation or gender, could be equally moved by candid tales of queer love. Smith's lyrical themes may have been specific to their own situation, but they could just as easily be interpreted on a universal level. Soon after, LGBTQIA+ singers such as "Britain's Got Talent" graduate Calum Scott and Eurovision Song Contest winner Duncan Laurence were mining a similar tragi-romantic path to hugely commercial effect.

The tactile way Smith addressed their unrequited love — not to mention, how much it was embraced by the mainstream — meant that In The Lonely Hour wasn't considered an explicitly LGBTQIA+ album at the time. Yet, the singer insists they were deliberately trying to challenge notions of gender, sexuality and masculinity.

Speaking to Out five years after the album's release, Smith revealed it was, in fact, partly influenced by one of the all-time gay icons. "I'm in a suit and in that suit, I was channeling Judy Garland. I look back on those videos of me when I was 20, and I see a feminine energy." They further explained they were surprised when the record wasn't initially interpreted as intended. But thanks to Smith's non-binary journey, the album's inherent queerness has unarguably now become more apparent.

Smith confirmed they were gay in the same week In The Lonely Hour hit the shelves, acknowledging the record was "about a guy that I fell in love with last year, and he didn't love me back." And the matter-of-fact way they spoke about their sexuality inspired several other artists to follow suit.

In 2017, Troye Sivan cited Smith as a role model for coming out without making any grand gestures. Years and Years frontman Olly Alexander has also applauded his fellow Brit for refusing to hide their true identity. Even some of Smith's collaborators, including Petras and Cat Burns, have touted the singer's self-assurance.

Indeed, while artists in less enlightened times often felt compelled to keep their sexuality under wraps, Smith has been able to express their true self from the outset. As a result, a generation of artists have seen that queerness needn't be a barrier to commercial success — and that celebrating it can change culture in a powerful way.

Listen To GRAMMY.com's 2024 Pride Month Playlist Of Rising LGBTQIA+ Artists

LGBTQ+ artists have long shaped the music industry and culture at large, offering audiences a glimpse into their unique lives, shared experiences and so much more.

Queer artists are foundational to American music; Released in 1935, Lucille Bogan’s “B.D. Woman’s Blues” was one of the first lesbian blues songs — and wouldn’t be the last. Fellow blues singers Gladys Bently, Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith also sang about same-sex love (thinly veiled or otherwise). On opposite ends of the 1970s musical spectrum, disco (itself a queer artform) and punk musicians explored gender identity in song and performance —  defying conventional gender norms at the time. Gender fluidity became part of the culture during the '80s, with genre-bending artists such as David Bowie and Boy George leading the charge. 

In the decades since,  a spectrum of LGBTQIA+ artists is opening up —  and creating work about — their sexual and gender identities. Queer artists are also being recognized for their contributions to global culture. In 1999, six-time GRAMMY winner Elton John became the first gay man to receive the GRAMMY Legend Award. 

Read more: The Evolution Of The Queer Anthem: From Judy Garland To Lady Gaga & Lil Nas X

The GRAMMY Awards have become more inclusive of the queer community. In 2012, the Music's Biggest Night became the first major awards show to remove gendered categories. In 2014, Queen Latifah officiated a mass wedding of straight and gay couples during Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’ “Same Love” performance, which included gay icon Madonna performing her “Open Your Heart.” In 2022, Brazilian singer/songwriter Liniker became the first trans artist to win a Latin GRAMMY. Just three months later, Sam Smith and Kim Petras became the first nonbinary and trans artists, respectively, to win a GRAMMY Award for Best Pop Duo/Group Performances for their collaboration, “Unholy.” The 2024 GRAMMYs marked a record high for queer women winning major awards: Miley Cyrus, Billie Eilish, Victoria Monét, and boygenuis all took home golden gramophones in the Big Six Categories. 

As queer artists continue to command attention across genres and get their flowers on the global stage, a new class of LGBTQIA+ artists is emerging into the scene. These artists are both following in the steps of established acts by sharing their experiences through their music, and creating work that is unique to their lives and time. 

In celebration of Pride Month 2024, GRAMMY.com has put together a playlist of rising artists across the LGBTQIA+ spectrum, whose sound commands you to live out loud. 

After establishing herself as a global pop star, Brazilian singer Anitta is bringing the music of her country to the forefront. On the just-released Funk Generation, the Latin GRAMMY nominee puts a spotlight on funk carioca — Brazilian funk.

On the 15-track album, Anitta sings in Portuguese, Spanish, and English over funk carioca beats, which are Brazil’s aggressive and hyper spin on genres like hip-hop and Miami bass. As with her previous releases, Funk Generation has elements of EDM, reggaeton, and pop, but the rhythms also known as baile funk are the star. The album represents a new era for Anitta, which she first kicked off in June with "Funk Rave," a single and video that captures the spirit of Brazil's favelas where funk carioca was born. 

Anitta later introduced Brazil's melodic funk subgenre to her global audience with the dreamy "Mil Veces." Now Anitta is expanding her funky world by bringing artists like Sam Smith, Brray, and Bad Gyal into her funky world.

"I'm going to accomplish making a lot of artists and people like funk," Anitta tells GRAMMY.com, adding that she hopes listeners "start embracing this rhythm that's very good, that invites you to dance, and that has an energy that's very unique to Brazil."

Funk Generation follows Anitta's rise to international stardom. Following a decade of making her mark in Brazil and later Latin America, Anitta went fully international with her 2022 album Versions of Me and the viral hit "Envolver." The album helped Anitta garner a GRAMMY nomination for Best New Artist in 2023 and a Latin GRAMMY nomination for Record Of The Year. She later told GRAMMY.com that "dreamed" of putting out a Brazilian funk album.

Anitta has made that dream come true with Funk Generation. Here are five takeaways from her genre-bending album, including insight from the Brazilian superstar herself.   

Anitta Said Making A Funk Carioca Album Was A "Challenge"

In March 2023, Anitta revealed that she was trying to get out of her contract with Warner Music, alleging a lack of support from the label. After parting ways with Warner in April, she signed a new deal with Republic Records and Universal Latin shortly after. It seems that her new label home offered the support she was looking for: She released "Funk Rave" in June 2023. 

"This funk album has been a challenge for me because it's not a rhythm that people are doing out there," she says. "It's something that’s very new that I'm going to introduce to people so they like it, listen to it, and try to do it as well."

She Wants to Continue To Breaking The Divide Between Latin America & Brazil

While Brazil is a part of Latin America, there still exists a bit of a cultural divide with Spanish-speaking Latin American countries because of language differences. On Funk Generation, Anitta aims to bridge that gap by featuring Latin music acts who embrace her  Brazilian funk vibes. 

On the sultry "Double Team," she is joined by Puerto Rican singer and rapper Brray and Barcelona-based artist Bad Gyal, who performed with Anitta for the first time at awards ceremony Premio Lo Nuestro in February. They get into the groove in Spanish with no problem alongside Anitta.

"It's been many years since Brazil has gotten to this international level, that a lot of people are listening to Brazilian songs, and I know I've worked a lot for this to happen," Anitta says. "More Latin artists coming to Brazil, who are curious and interested in making a career there.

"It's been very important for me to create this cultural exchange because the Latino countries and Brazil are side-by-side, but it's like there's a big barrier between them because of language," she continues. "With music, we can break through."

Sam Smith Embraces Funk Carioca For The First Time 

It’s not only Latin music acts who are getting in on funk carioca with Anitta. British superstar Sam Smith joins Anitta for the freaky "Ahi," and Smith's soulful voice soars over the sleek Brazilian funk rhythms. The collaboration shows how determined Anitta is to push the music of her country into the mainstream with Smith being one of most prominent pop artists from the UK to embrace the genre. 

The song also marks an important moment for LGBTQIA+ representation with Anitta, who is bisexual, teaming up with the non-binary GRAMMY winner.

Funk Generation Spotlights Brazilian Talent 

Anitta shares her platform with more Brazilian acts in the alluring "Joga Pra Lua," an EDM-infused funk banger that invites the listener to a block party where they get lost in the music. 

Translated to "play for the moon," the track is produced by fellow Brazilian DENNIS (who recently scored a global hit with the remix of "Tá OK" featuring Kevin o Chris, Karol G, and Maluma). Anitta is also joined on the track by Brazilian hitmaker Pedro Sampaio, who sings in Portuguese.

Anitta Is Looking Toward The Future Of Funk Carioca

Despite the few features, Funk Generation is an album where Anitta largely shines solo. She not only puts a spotlight on the Brazilian genre with this LP, but pushes it to new places. One of the standouts is the frenetic "Grip" where Anitta blends Brazilian funk with elements of Miami bass music that’s reminiscent of the ‘90s. She sings in Portuguese, English and Spanish throughout the song.

Whereas funk carioca played second fiddle to many other genres in her previous album, now the tables are turned in Funk Generation. She seamlessly blends pop with funk carioca in the fully English track "Love in Common" that could sneak those rhythms onto Top 40 radio. Anitta also finds a common thread between Brazilian funk, reggaeton, and Afrobeat in the multicultural banger "Aceita."

 The future of baile funk looks bright in Anitta’s hands.

Meet The First-Time GRAMMY Nominee: Anitta On The "Insane" Success Of "Envolver," Representing Brazil & Reshaping Global Pop