The Recording Academy has released the complete list of nominations for the Grammy Awards in 2022. This year’s awards will be presented to notable singers such as Cardi B, Lil Nas X, and Justin Bieber, but there are also categories for non-music albums, such as the Best Spoken Word Album category. The Grammy nominations for Best Spoken Word Album this year have formally put Dave Chappelle and Barack Obama against each other for the same honor.
The 2022 Grammy nominations for Best Spoken World Album includes Dave Chappelle’s 8:46, Barack Obama’s A Promised Land, LeVar Burton’s Aftermath, Don Cheadle’s Carry On: Reflections For A New Generation From John Lewis, and J. Ivy’s Catching Dreams: Live At Fort Knox Chicago.
If Chappelle wins, he will win a Grammy for the fourth year in a row, having already won in the Comedy Album category in 2018, 2019, and 2020. If Obama wins the category for the third time, he will be the first former president to do so. In 2005, he received a Grammy for Dreams From My Father (Senator Barack Obama), then in 2007, he won a Grammy for The Audacity Of Hope: Thoughts On Reclaiming The American Dream.
Chappelle was nominated for his Netflix special in 2020, which has a title that refers to the police killing of George Floyd. However, since its publication, the comedian’s 2021 special The Closer has sparked a lot of debate. One trans Netflix employee resigned as a result of the stand-up, which includes multiple transphobic punchlines.
