Being acknowledged for your work is always a great accomplishment, whether it's people in my city, kids in the street, all the way up to the Grammys.

I wanna be the most successful socially aware artist: Grammys, number one singles, albums, overseas and internationally-known household name, all that.

But the Grammys is just not something I can take too seriously. It would be a mistake to hinge my happiness on something so completely out of my control.

All my life, I was even just wanted to attend the Grammys, like, just be there, so the fact that I'm nominated for Best New Artist, it feels like a dream.

Not many people are able to say that they had in their professional career the chance to perform in two bands that won Grammys and were multiplatinum bands.

Whether it be Beyonce or Justin Bieber, we see singers who have absolutely nothing to offer anyone as they walk off stage clutching three Grammys in each hand.

The first songs I made brought me to the Grammys. I was a five-times nominated teenager off voice memos and songs that were clearly recorded off different mics.

We just couldn't seem to get the love from the Nashville awards shows... So Grammys really gave us validation, and so that's why they're such a big deal for us.

It's so perfectly Alaska to be like, 'Dad we're going to the Grammys,' and for him to be like, 'Oh, well that's great, Johnny. All right, gotta go back to work.'

I used to love, and I still do, Lee Ann Womack. And Alison Krauss. I mean, how many Grammys does she have? She's just remained solid and true and great, and I respect that.

Most of the time - at the Grammys for example - a DJ will perform with just their hands in the air because they can't do anything and that makes it a little awkward, I think.

I think I'm happier, not just because of winning Grammys and selling records, but because it's really fulfilling to have all these things happen with something you love to do.

At the Grammys, you walk down the halls and everyone's got five security guards. You can't talk to anybody. You always feel out of place, like, 'Hey, the rednecks are in town!'

Award shows, like the Grammys, were tough on us early in hip-hop, not even televising our categories or splitting them up on best male or female or any of that. We had to earn them.

I spent 25 years clearly understanding that I'm not gonna meet Bono or the Edge. But then it happened at the Grammys when we were all backstage and I just about fell out of my shoes.

The interviews have been a little tough due to the fact that we're interviewing dogs. We see a lot of contestants licking themselves, but we're used to that from covering the Grammys.

I've been invited to the Grammys with other friends who were nominated. I'm like, 'Naw, I'm not gonna go until it's my time.' And who knew it was gonna be, like, the next year? It's crazy.

I'm aware that if I make a country album and release it, and it gets on the Grammys, the Grammys are going to put it in the Urban category. Just my blackness automatically sets it in there.

I grew up looking at the Grammys. It was a childhood infatuation with these people walking around with gold statues. I felt like they were the best, and that's why I started working so hard.

For a while, R&B was going out of style. It was kind of getting kicked to the side. The first year the R&B Album of the Year didn't get on the TV portion of the Grammys is when I got nominated.

It was so surreal, having my parents hear the President and First Lady saying to me, 'Good to see you again! We're so proud of you. We watched you on the Grammys and were like, 'That's our girl!'

My dreams as a kid were so far below the Grammys, like, maybe selling out a show, or, like, seeing your album on a shelf in an Urban Outfitters... and the Grammys are so far above that. It's very ridiculous.

The spooky thing is that two weeks before the Grammys, I wrote down my goals, and one of them was, 'To be on the top of the Billboard charts with a song I wrote and performed.' ... It's completely unheard of.

We don't compete with the Grammys. The Grammys compete with us. They have taken the stance that anybody who performs on 'The American Music Awards' cannot appear on 'The Grammys.' I don't agree with that philosophy.

I was in a bluegrass band. I made two records with a band called the SteelDrivers. They were nominated for two Grammys. I then I was in a rock band called the Junction Brothers; we made kind of '70s hard rock music.

Rock evolved out of rebellion, so when you turn on the Billboard Awards or something like the Grammys, and there's no rock on there, that's a good sign - because that means that rock is not welcome inside of a pop format.

Dance music has evolved very much. From DJs playing at the Olympics, to playing at the Super Bowl, working with Cirque Du Soleil and even getting recognized at the Grammys with awards, dance music is growing in a big way.

In Las Vegas, a day before the Latin Grammys, I was walking backward and hit a light and fell down. The worst part is that I was singing with Becky G and Mau y Ricky - they all rushed over to help me. It was very dramatic.

My friend Quincy Jones says we won our first Grammys together in 1963. I have no recollection. I don't even remember the room. When he showed me the picture, I remembered what I wore. But it's like awards don't mean anything.

I'm kind of iffy on the Latin Grammys because I think we fought so hard, for example, to get the American side of the Grammys to open categories for us... But I support the Latin Grammys in the sense I'm glad that we have them.

If I die and I gotta couple Grammys on me, more than a couple hits on me, I got some plaques and I got billboards still up and I done touched a lot of people's souls and I'm viral, once that happen then you can judge all you want.

Well, today the Grammys is much much better than the Oscars. I think the differences in the shows are that the Grammys are much wilder. The Oscars is much more people in the industry. And people dress wilder, I think, at the Grammys.

I've said the Grammys messed up metal because it's not on TV. What I'm saying is when you're in a metal category, it's not televised, and it doesn't move the needle forward for metal artists, and I wish they had more respect for the genre.

The night I was recognized for 'Daughters' at the Grammys was the night this record started. I knew I had bought the time to learn everything I needed before I started this one. 'Continuum' is not a shot in the dark, it's not a guesstimation.

I would watch the Oscars and every award show with my parents. I would make lists of who was going to win. I'd be doing Oscar predictions months ahead of time, and not only for the Oscars, for the Grammys. This is just what excited me as a kid.

It's not just the 'Grammys' that I've pulled out of. I also pulled out of the English awards as well. The reason that I wanted to pull out was because I believe very much that the music industry as a whole is mainly concerned with material success.

Going from someone playing 15-people venues to performing at the Grammys, it was this giant leap and sort of showed me it was possible with what I wanted to do and the kind of music I wanted to write and artist I want to be to impact a lot of people.

We can watch videos of our whole journey - from old tours to doing the AMAs (American Music Awards) in 2013 and through the 'Star Wars' medley or when we sang with Stevie Wonder on the Grammys. I just sit back and say, 'I can't believe we did all this!'

Even though the popularity and the fanbase is much much greater, and more people have heard about me through things like the Grammys and the Ivors and touring and word of mouth, it doesn't reflect in the sales of the record and doesn't go into my pocket.

Growing up, people are like, 'Mary, we'll see you at the Grammys.' You're like, 'I'll be at the Grammys.' Then, you're actually at the Grammys! That actually is happening; it's not just something people are saying because they like your music. It's real!

Drake doesn't realize, in many ways, he was like the big brother I never had. He set the example and paved the way for me to be myself. Now, whether I'm at the Grammys or whether I'm here or there or whatever, he'll show me love... People don't realize what that's like, what that means.

I actually met Deadmau5 for the first time on the red carpet in Hollywood for the Grammys. I was there with my daughter, and he introduced himself to me. He said, 'Hey, I'm from Toronto.' I had a little conversation with him, and then I realized I'm talking to a guy with a giant mouse head.

To all of the artists that attend the Grammys: Stop accepting the invitation to be the upset of the year and demand that this body upholds its mission for advocacy and support of artistry as culture evolves. Demand that they change this system and truly reflect and truly acknowledge your art.

I will never not know where I came from. I can be in the biggest house, the best apartment, winning Tonys and Grammys and whatever, and I will always remember waiting in line for government cheese and bread and having food stamps. I had a tough life, and I will never not know the way I was raised and the place where I was raised.

I was named on the worst-dressed list at the Grammys a couple of years ago. I had on Tom Ford, and I thought it was the most amazing dress ever. But I got put on the worst-dressed list. Luckily, at least I was pictured alongside Adele, J-Lo, and whoever - all these superstars who were also called worst-dressed - so that was a good thing!

Does the Grammys intentionally use artists for their celebrity, popularity, and cultural appeal when they already know the winners and then program a show against this expectation? Meanwhile, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences hides behind the 'peer' voting system to escape culpability for not even rethinking its approach.

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