The 66th Grammy Music Awards ceremony took place in Los Angeles on the night of February 4-5. The Twitch community also followed the event, highlighting the significant role music plays in live streaming. Music hits frequently accompany live broadcasts on the platform, and in recent times, many popular streamers have been hosting star artists on their shows.
During the ceremony, members of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences named the best compositions and performers of 2023. The top awards were presented to Miley Cyrus for Record of the Year with her song "Flowers," Taylor Swift for Album of the Year with "Midnights," and Billy Eilish for Song of the Year with "What Was I Made For?".
The music award sparked widespread discussion in Twitch chats. Mentions of the Grammy Awards on the day of the ceremony surged from 200-300 messages to 6K messages per day. Among the live content creators, American streamer Kai Cenat's chat was particularly active in discussing the Grammy Awards. He watched highlights from the ceremony and expressed deep disappointment that the award for Best Rap Album went to Killer Mike.
In terms of the number of mentions, this year's ceremony surpassed the results from the previous year. On the day of the nominee announcements, there were just over 4K mentions in Twitch chats.
The award winners also had an increase in mentions on Twitch. For example, mentions of Miley Cyrus nearly quintupled, rising from 450 to 2.2K messages per day. Similarly, mentions of Taylor Swift surged from 4.9K to 12.6K messages.
Results in the rap categories garnered significant attention on the platform, given the genre's popularity among Western streamers. Rapper Killer Mike emerged victorious in several categories, including Best Rap Performance, Best Song, and Best Album. Mentions of him in Twitch chats surged from 10 messages to 2.5K messages in just one day.
Killer Mike has surpassed Travis Scott in the number of mentions on Twitch. An even more interesting situation arises with Drake, one of the most popular rappers in the streaming community, who receives significantly more mentions in chats than other artists. On the day of the ceremony, the number of messages with his name increased from 15K to 17.8K. However, this growth continued even after all the Grammy winners were announced. The surge in mentions was due to the leakage of a sex video involving Drake on February 6, which sparked much more active discussion on Twitch than the ceremony itself: the number of Drake mentions in chats grew from 17.8K to 36K messages.
The unexpected success of Killer Mike sparked heated discussions on social networks and Twitch, as the performer managed to outshine stars like Travis Scott, Drake, and 21 Savage. Many fans deemed the results in the rap categories biased and criticized the organizers of the Grammys.
The Grammy Awards is the most discussed music award among Twitch users, with a total of 5.5K messages on the day of the event. In comparison, the 2023 MTV Video Music Awards had just over 1K messages.
The Grammy Awards were officially broadcast on CBS and Paramount+. Concurrently, some Twitch streamers covered the event on their channels. Some organized Watch Parties, while others simply discussed the nominees and winners without rebroadcasting the ceremony. The most popular broadcast was hosted by Hasan, whose stream discussing the Grammys garnered more than 31.2K Peak Viewers.
