Bad Bunny, Black Pumas, Cardi B, BTS, Brandi Carlile, DaBaby, Doja Cat, Billie Eilish, Mickey Guyton, Haim, Brittany Howard, Miranda Lambert, Lil Baby, Dua Lipa, Chris Martin, John Mayer, Megan Thee Stallion, Maren Morris, Post Malone, Roddy Ricch, Harry Styles, and Taylor Swift will perform at the Grammy Awards on Sunday, March 14, the Recording Academy has announced.
Nearly all of the artists are nominees, and several — including Styles, Megan Thee Stallion, Bad Bunny, DaBaby, Doja Cat and Guyton — will be making their debut as Grammy performers.
The ceremony takes place “in and around” the Los Angeles Convention Center, under strict COVID protocol. “Artists will be coming together, while still safely apart, to play music for each other as a community and celebrate the music that unites us all,” according to the announcement. The audience will be limited to performers, nominees and a small number of their guests.
In an interview with Variety, first-time Grammy executive producer Ben Winston said some performances will be pre-recorded. And while honorees will gather in a room — a really big one in the cavernous convention center — there will be four stages, each set up in the round with a small number of performers, nominees and guests grouped around it.
“We’ve designed a set that you could argue makes it an even more exciting show,” Winston says. “The performers and nominees are each other’s audience, so it’s a room of incredible musicians, all safely distanced from each other, and every 45 minutes a new four groups come in and the [previous] four go out.”
Additionally, the show will pay tribute to the country’s independent music venues, which have been greatly impacted by the pandemic. Workers from New York’s Apollo Theater, Nashville’s Station Inn, and the Troubadour and the Hotel Café (both in Los Angeles) will present the awards in various categories throughout the night.
Winston said, “Venues are such an integral part of the music community — some of the greatest shows we’ve ever seen have been at the Troubadour or my favorite small venue in London. So we’ve decided that this year, the majority of the awards will be given out by people who work in those venues — bartenders, security, door people — and I love the idea that Album of the Year can be given out by them. It’s the people who make these places historic, and this allows us to highlight the great work that they do and the fact that they’ve been out of work for so long — and to show that we haven’t forgotten them on ‘Music’s Biggest Night,’ and remind our audience that when this is all over, to go back to their favorite venue.”
Winston also explained the rationale behind announcing all of the performers at once, rather than the traditional slow drip in the weeks leading up to the show. “Yep, we’re going for it in one fell swoop, everybody in the same moment so there’s no hierarchy. We’re doing many things differently this year that we might as well kick it off with the way we announce the performers. I think when you announce two at a time, four at a time, people say, ‘There isn’t enough of this or that,’ or ‘Where’s so-and-so?’ We have a really impressive group, and this way you see the breadth and range of the performers we have on the show.”
Hosted by Trevor Noah, CBS and the Recording Academy present the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards, airing live on Sunday, March 14, 2021, at 8:00 p.m. ET/5:00 p.m. PT on CBS Television Network and also available to stream live and on demand on Paramount+.
