Kendrick Lamar surpasses Jay-Z as most-awarded rapper in Grammys history
Kendrick Lamar won big at the 2026 Grammy Awards on February 1st to beat a major record previously set by Jay-Z.
The Compton rapper picked up five awards over the weekend, securing his 26th Grammy award of all time.
In doing so, he surpassed Jay-Z’s 25 awards to become the most-awarded rapper in the history of the ceremony.
On the night, Kendrick won ‘Best Rap Album’ for GNX, ‘Best Rap Song’ for ‘TV Off’, ‘Record of the Year’ and ‘Best Melodic Rap Performance’ for ‘Luther’ with SZA, and ‘Best Rap Performance’ for ‘Chains and Whips’ with Clipse.
During his speech for GNX, he said, “It’s hip-hop as usual, man. I’m not good at talking about myself, but I express it through the music. It’s an honour to be here, Tyler, the Clipse. Like, these are my brothers to be in this category. What’s up, Push, man? Malice, man?”
He continued, “Every time I tell you this: hip-hop is gonna always be right here. We gon’ be in these suits, we gon’ be looking good. We gon’ be having our folks with us. We gon’ be having the culture with us. So I appreciate y’all. God is the glory. Love y’all.”
Kendrick was nominated for a total of nine awards at the 68th Annual Grammy Awards – the most of any artist on the night. He won his first awards in 2014, collecting the ‘Best Rap Song’ and ‘Best Rap Performance’ trophies for ‘i’.
Last year, his Drake diss track ‘Not Like Us‘ was nominated five times and won in each of the categories.
Jay-Z hasn’t won an award since 2022, picking up ‘Best Rap Song’ for his Kanye West collaboration, ‘Jail’, which appeared on Ye’s Donda album.