Best Rap Performance

Glory – Common & John Legend
Trap Queen – Fetty Wap
All Day – Kanye West Featuring Theophilus London, Allan Kingdom & Paul McCartney
Alright – Kendrick Lamar
Truffle Butter – Nicki Minaj Featuring Drake & Lil Wayne

Alternatives:  Apparently – J Cole, Where Ya At – Future Featuring Drake, Energy – Drake

Best Rap/Sung Collaboration

Everyday – A$AP Rocky Featuring Rod Stewart, Miguel & Mark Ronson
Ayo – Chris Brown & Tyga
Preach – Drake Featuring PartyNextDoor
All Eyes on You – Meek Mill Featuring Nicki Minaj & Chris Brown
Only – Nicki Minaj Featuring Drake, Lil Wayne & Chris Brown

Alternatives:  One Man Can Change The World – Big Sean Featuring Kanye West & John Legend, These Walls – Kendrick Lamar featuring Bilal, Anna Wise and Thundercat, Body Language – Kid Ink Featuring Usher & Tinashe

Best Rap Song

Glory – Common Featuring John Legend
Feelin’ Myself – Nicki Minaj Featuring Beyoncé
Trap Queen – Fetty Wap
All Day – Kanye West Featuring Theophilus London, Allan Kingdom & Paul McCartney
Alright – Kendrick Lamar

Alternatives: Ayo – Chris Brown & Tyga, Phenomenal – Eminem,  Apparently – J Cole

Best Rap Album

If You Are Reading This It’s Too Late – Drake
Compton – Dr Dre
Fetty Wap – Fetty Wap
To Pimp a Butterfly – Kendrick Lamar
The Pinkprint – Nicki Minaj

Alternatives: What a Time To Be Alive – Drake & Future, DS2 – Future, 2014 Forest Hills Drive – J Cole

The worst categories to write out (why so many collaborations guys?), but one of the most competitive. 2014/15 has seen some massive albums from some of Hip Hop’s biggest names. A surprise iTunes release from Rap’s most recent superstar, the follow up to an infamously Grammy snubbed album and one of the years true ‘event albums’. I’d say Best Rap Album is the toughest category to call here, with Drake, Kendrick and Dr Dre all more than deserving of the prize. Any of them could win, despite it being the only category I’ve mentioned Dre in. With no distinctive ‘hits’ from Compton he could struggle in the song categories.

Acts who won’t struggle include Chris Brown, who has seemingly submitted 600 hundred songs for this year’s Grammys and Nicki Minaj who has split her potential songs between the 4 categories. I personally think she should have focused on Beyoncé collaboration Feelin’ Myself which is just mainstream enough to appeal to voters outside of even just the Rap field. Kanye is another obvious choice. In his 10 years of Grammy eligibility he has scored at least one nomination every year  but 2007. He;s well on his way to becoming the most decorated act in Grammy history, but somehow I doubt it he will be sweeping the categories this year.

Fetty Wap may seem like the outlier here, but Trap Queen is by far the biggest hit I’ve mentioned above both on the Rap charts and across the world. Given the success of Macklemore in these categories in years past, I’d say Fetty will pick up the Rap Performance award and perhaps a nomination in Song, you don’t score a hit that massive without voters noticing. On the other side of things is Glory, which is more than certain to win Best Rap Song after its victory at the Oscars this year. It helps that Common and John Legend are Grammy favourites of course.

That just leaves Kendrick Lamar, who I’m tipping for some big nominations this year in the Big 4 and the undisputed leader of Rap in 2015 Drake. He’s featured on so many eligible songs and he even has 2 mixtapes that could be up for Best Rap Album. I’d be surprised if Drake doesn’t receive a nomination in just about ever category here where he might just pick up the second award of his career. The biggest shock looking through the submissions though was the complete absence of Hotline Bling, which has fast become Drake’s all time biggest hit. I think it could have won a couple of awards this and it feels strange it won’t be featured.