• Olivia Rodrigo made an impressive Grammy debut, Silk Sonic claimed two major awards and Jon Batiste had the most stunning victory of the night winning the top prize at Sunday’s Grammy Awards.
• The night’s festivities briefly grew somber when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the gathering with an update on the war and numbers including children injured and killed.
• Dressed in all black, BTS took the stage with a flirty moment between V and Rodrigo before the group performed their hit single “Butter.”

Olivia Rodrigo made an impressive Grammy debut, Silk Sonic claimed two major awards and Jon Batiste had the most stunning victory of the night winning the top prize at Sunday’s Grammy Awards.

Batiste won five Grammys Sunday including album of the year for “We Are” pulling off an upset in a loaded category filled with tough competition from Rodrigo, Billie Eilish, Taylor Swift and the combined talents of Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga. After his win, the multi-genre performer honored the artists he beat, telling the audience that “the creative arts are subjective. Be you.”

“I just put my head down and I work on the craft every day,” said Batiste, who won for his song “Cry,” the video for “Freedom” and his work with the Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross on the soundtrack for “Soul.”

Silk Sonic — the all-star union of Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak — took home awards in all four categories it was nominated in, including record and song of the year. Both were exuberant as they accepted the honor toward the end of the ceremony.

The wins in both major categories put Mars on the brink of history: He became the only artist along with Paul Simon to take win record of the year three times. He tied the record for most song of the year wins with two.

Anderson .Paak and Bruno Mars of Silk Sonic perform onstage during the 64th Annual Grammy Awards at MGM Grand Garden Arena on April 3, 2022 in Las Vegas, Nevada.Kevin Mazur | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images

“We are really trying our hardest to remain humble at this point,” .Paak said. “But in the industry, they call that a clean sweep!” later adding “drinks is on Silk Sonic tonight!”

Rodrigo’s win for best new artist put her in esteemed company including Carly Simon, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Tom Jones, the Beatles and Billie Eilish.

A veteran of the “High School Musical” series, she became the breakout music star of 2021, leading with her massive viral hit “Drivers License” and following with the single “Good 4 U” and the aching album “Sour,” which took best pop vocal album.

“This is my biggest dream come true,” she said after her best new artist win. She thanked her parents for supporting her dreams, which at one point involved being an Olympic gymnast and quickly veered toward music.

“I want to thank my mom for being so supportive for all of my dreams, no matter how crazy. I want to thank my mom and dad for being equally as proud of me for winning a Grammy as they were when I learned how to do a back walk.”

Olivia Rodrigo performs onstage during the 64th Annual Grammy Awards at MGM Grand Garden Arena on April 3, 2022 in Las Vegas.Rich Fury | Getty Images

The win came after the night’s festivities briefly grew somber when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the gathering with an update on the war and numbers including children injured and killed. “Our musicians wear body armor instead of tuxedos,” he said. “We are fighting Russia, which brings horrible silence with its bombs. The dead silence. Fill the silence with your music.”

He ended by saying: “Tell the truth about the war on your social networks, on TV. Support us in any way you can, but not silence. And then peace will come to all our cities.”

John Legend then performed “Free” with Ukrainian exiles including singer-actress Mika Newton and poet Lyuba Yakimchuk.

Silk Sonic opened the ceremony in Las Vegas with their high-energy, infectious mix of retro soul and funk by performing their “777.” They returned to the stage a short time later to collect the song of the year trophy for “Leave the Door Open.”

Both Mars and .Paak jumped out their seat, threw up their hands and danced to their song.

“We’ll be singing this song together for the rest of our lives,” Mars said to .Paak

Host Trevor Noah introduced the duo’s opening performance by saying they were singlehandedly bringing back the 1970s, “which might explain the inflation.”

Doja Cat and SZA gave an emotional speech after winning best pop duo-group performance for “Kiss Me More.” Cat told SZA that she’s “everything to me” and the “epitome of talent” as she tried to hold back tears.

“This is a big deal,” Cat said after she darted to the podium after using the bathroom. SZA beat her by a few seconds despite climbing onstage on crutches with the help of Lady Gaga.

“I feel like me and SZA are similar in the way that we both grew up with spiritual backgrounds,” she continued. “But she was perfect for this song.”

It was a family affair from cousins Baby Keem and Kendrick Lamar, who won best rap performance for their song “Family Ties.” Lamar won his 14th Grammy and the first for Keem, who said “nothing could have prepared me for this moment” after stepping out onstage to claim his trophy.WATCH NOWVIDEO15:49The rise and fall of the Oscars and Emmys

By the time the show started on CBS, Batiste had already taken home four Grammy Awards, including his first ever, during a pre-telecast ceremony.

“I am so grateful for the gifts that God has given me and the ability to share that for the love of humankind,” Batiste said after collecting his music video award for “Freedom.” “We just wanted everyone to see it. Any depression, any bondage or any darkness that was over your life is completely removed by just the love and the joy of the video.”

Chris Stapleton won his third Grammy for best country solo performance for “You Should Probably Leave.”

Tony Bennett extended his record as the artist with the most traditional pop vocal album honors with 14 wins with “Love for Sale,” a duet album with Lady Gaga.

Dressed in all black, BTS took the stage with a flirty moment between V and Rodrigo before the group performed their hit single “Butter.” They made an appearance after one of the members tested positive for Covid-19. All seven of the members – Jin, Jimin, V, RM, J-Hope, Suga and Jungkook – acted as if they were secret agents dodging neon-blue lasers, dancing with smooth choreography before going into a brief rap portion of the song.

BTS performs onstage during the 64th Annual GRAMMY Awards at MGM Grand Garden Arena on April 3, 2022 in Las Vegas, Nevada.Johnny Nunez | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images

Foo Fighters won three awards Sunday, but were not in attendance to pick up their trophies following the recent death of drummer Taylor Hawkins. An extended tribute to Hawkins played before the show’s In Memoriam segment honoring artists and music industry figures who’ve died.

Eilish paid homage to Hawkins during her performance by sporting a black T-shirt with his image. She stepped onstage in an upside-down house along with her brother Finneas before walking into a downpour to perform the title track from her “Happier Than Ever.”

TJ Osborne, who came out as gay last year, fought back tears as he and his brother accepted a Grammy during the pre-telecast show for the Brothers Osborne song “Younger Me.” He noted the song was inspired by his coming out.

“I never thought that I would be able to do music professionally because of my sexuality. And I certainly never thought I would be here on the stage accepting a Grammy after having done something I felt like was going to be life changing and potentially in a very negative way,” Osborne said.

“And here I am tonight, not only accepting this Grammy Award with my brother, which I love so much, but I’m here with a man that I love and he loves me back” he said. “I don’t know what I did to be so lucky.”

The ceremony shifted in January from Los Angeles to Las Vegas because of rising Covid-19 cases and the omicron variant, with organizers citing “too many risks.”

TVM: Honey Jam is this great showcase of female talent and I was just wondering, what the rationale or reason behind as to why you  focus primarily on females.

Ebonnie: It was born to combat the negative portrayals of women in music industry. At the beginning, it was really an R&B thing and very heavy on hip-hop. We wanted to give women who would be scared because they didn’t know they had skill or didn’t feel comfortable a safe place to experiment. So we created that welcoming space. We feature women DJing, women rapping, women break-dancing, women doing things that were not expected at the time.

TVM: In terms of Honey Jam, for our readers who may not be as familiar with the showcase, could you just do a brief run-down of the criteria in terms of auditioning?

Ebonnie: You basically just have to be female and be good. We have 12 judges and they will rate the artist, 10 being the highest. Then, we shortlist based on who got an average of 8, and then we separate them from the live auditions because this is a nationwide search. If you can’t make the live auditions, you can submit online. We separately go through the YouTube videos that are submitted online and then make a choice from that of 10 to 15 or so artists. We usually have an established artist come at the launch and give them an idea of their own personal journey to the industry, people like Divine Brown, Jully Black, Keshia Chanté, Suzie McNeil, etc. We have an all-day workshop at the Harris Institute and all this is free. So they learn about publishing, management, funding, media training, song writing… We give them one-on-one vocalist training with Elaine Overholt and then, there’s the show. So there are four events – the auditions, the launch, the workshop and the show.

TVM: Where do you predict you will be, or where would you like to be, with Honey Jam in the next 5 to 10 years?

Ebonnie: I would like for us to have secured, sustained funding. I don’t want us to be begging every year. I want sustained funding and I want it to be a bigger event, maybe a two-day festival. [I want to] have it grow, provide more opportunities for the artist, be able to fly in people from the industry to come and hear the artist. I mean, the whole point of Honey Jam is providing this platform and opportunities to these artists. It’s a multi-cultural, multi-genre developmental initiative that’s providing this platform and education for artists. So whatever we can do to enhance what were already doing, make it bigger and better, that’s what I want to see.

TVM: That’s so awesome! What inspires you most in your line of work?

Ebonnie: Doing Honey Jam has been a struggle and very difficult to get going because we are not a big festival with 20 thousand people and in this economy, it’s hard to get cash. They tend to support bigger events that have television commercials and stuff, which we don’t have. I enjoy having some integrity, but it’s been very difficult. I’m a perfectionist; things have to be done a certain way. I can’t switch it off. I’m not a slacker. I had a full time job running a mentor program and running Honey Jam, and back then we were also doing a CD and a magazine and dance agency. It was so much stuff and it was killing me. In 1999, I said I was retiring. MuchMusic came and did the whole ‘farewell to Honey Jam thing’. So I’m sitting down watching it and this artist came on camera and said “Ebonnie, if you’re watching this, please don’t leave Honey Jam! There’s nothing like it! For unknown artists, what are we going do?” It just really pulled on my heartstrings. I hadn’t really thought about that. Where is someone who’s completely unknown going to get a concert where there are hundreds of people? Where are they going to get this platform? So all these other people came up to me and said “Ebonnie, if you need help, I’m here to help you.” So I [stayed]. I had lots of people to help me. By the way, Nelly Furtado is now a financial sponsor of the show through her company Nel-Star