The biggest night in the music world is the Grammy Awards. The 2025 Grammy Awards are still several months away in February, but the nominations will be announced this Friday, Nov. 8, 2024.
Every year, these nominations are highly anticipated, and when announced, surprises and snubs quickly fill headlines and social media feeds. This year, not only are these nominations highly anticipated, but the upcoming nominations have spawned four Grammy nomination markets on the Kalshi prediction market platform.
If you’re looking to do some Kalshi betting on the Grammys, here’s the breakdown of the Best New Artist category:
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Who is eligible for Best New Artist?
Before we dive into the Kalshi market, we first have to understand what makes an artist eligible for this award. This Grammy is probably the most complicated in terms of eligibility. Here is a brief summary from The Recording Academy –
A "new artist" is defined for the GRAMMY process as any performing artist or established performing group who releases, during the eligibility year, the recording that first establishes the public identity of that artist or established group as a performer. A GRAMMY nomination in a performance category in a prior year disqualifies an artist from competing in this category, unless the nomination came from a single or a guest spot on another artist's recording, and the artist hadn't yet released a full album.
There are more rules, such as a minimum and maximum number of releases. You can only win this award once and you can only submit yourself into the category three times. The reason this is relevant is because it impacts this year’s Best New Artist race.
Singer Tate Mcrae has been on the scene for many years and has released two massively popular singles, “greedy” and “exes” at the end of last year. Thanks to the songs going viral on TikTok, “greedy” has over 1.5 billion listens on Spotify, and “exes” has close to half a billion listens.
She has reached a much higher level of popularity this year but because she has already submitted to the Best New Artist category three times, she is no longer eligible for the category.
Tate McRae is no longer eligible for Best New Artist at the Grammys as she has already been submitted for consideration three times, according to Billboard. pic.twitter.com/Bh1XCnyohH
— Pop Base (@PopBase) June 26, 2024
An important thing to note is this Grammy’s eligibility period. For the 2025 Grammy’s, it will be from Sept. 16, 2023, to Aug. 30, 2024.
The number of nominees in this category differs depending on the year. Last year there were eight nominations and the previous year there were 10 nominations. If you take a look at the current numbers, here is where the top five candidates stand in this market:
- Benson Boone 99%
- Sabrina Carpenter 96%
- Chappell Roan 93%
- Shaboozey 91%
- Raye 81%
All five of these artists will likely get a nomination because they have all had significant accomplishments this year.
Benson Boone
Benson Boone released his smash hit “Beautiful Things” in January of this year, and it has over 1.5 billion streams on Spotify. The song went on to reach the No. 2 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. And his debut album, “Fireworks & Rollerblades” reached the No. 6 spot on the Billboard 200 album chart.
Boone has been performing the song on late-night shows like Jimmy Fallon, at the 2024 American Music Awards, and Kelly Clarkson even covered the song on her talk show.
He has sprung onto the scene and reached mainstream popularity garnering 7.2 million followers on TikTok and 3.4 million followers on Instagram.
Sabrina Carpenter
The only surprising thing about the bets is that Benson Boone is the highest on the chart. If there was one artist who without a doubt would get a nomination it is Sabrina Carpenter.
After touring with Taylor Swift on the Era’s tours, Carpenter skyrocketed to success with her hit single, “Espresso.” The song was released on Apr. 12, 2024, and has over 1.5 billion listens on Spotify.
Her next single “Please Please Please” was released in June 2024 and has just under a billion listens. This single went on to become her first No. 1 on the Billboard chart.
Carpenter then released her chart-topping album, “Short ‘N Sweet” in August of this year, along with a new single, “Taste.” Carpenter’s success led to her becoming the first artist since The Beatles to chart her first three top-five hits simultaneously.
And on her stadium tour, Carpenter partnered with HeadCount, a non-profit trying to register young people to vote. The organization had announced prior to the election that Carpenter had signed up more young people than any other artist in 2024.
However, there is some confusion on why she is eligible for the nomination because “Short ‘N Sweet” is Carpenter’s sixth studio album and she is not especially new to the stage. The argument is that she hadn’t broken into the mainstream until this year.
We will have to see if The Recording Academy agrees.
Chappell Roan
It is also surprising that Chappell Roan’s percentage is at a lower forecasted number than Benson Boone. Along with veteran pop star Charli XCX, Carpenter and Roan’s songs had dominated the airwaves this past summer.
While Charli XCX is not a new artist and wouldn’t be eligible, these other two will be nominated without a doubt. Similar to Carpenter, Roan has skyrocketed into success this year. Her single, “Good Luck Babe” was released on Apr. 5, 2024, and has close to a billion listens on Spotify.
The single reached the No. 4 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 and became her first top-five song on the chart. This past September she won the Best New Artist award at the 2024 MTV VMAs.
And similar to Carpenter, Roan was also invited to be the musical guest on Saturday Night Live this year.
Roan often collaborates with producer Dan Nigro, known for his work on Olivia Rodrigo’s debut album, which earned Rodrigo the Best New Artist award at the 2022 Grammys.
Shaboozey
Unlike the last three artists who are all riding on huge pop song waves, Shaboozey is at the top of this list because of his hit country song, “A Bar Song (Tipsy).”
He first gained attention for his song, “Start a Riot” (with Duckwrth), which was featured on the Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse soundtrack. And this past year, he was featured on Beyoncé’s country album, “Cowboy Carter.”
Shaboozey then released “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” on April 12, 2024. Not only does it have close to 900 million listens on Spotify, it’s currently at the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100. It has held that spot for 16 non-consecutive weeks – making it the song with the second-longest rule at the top of the chart. Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” currently holds the record with 19 weeks.
Unlike the previous three artists, Shaboozey latest rise to prominence is based solely on this one song. While the other three have multiple popular songs to have come out this year which have reached massive popularity, Shaboozey does not.
However, given his song’s record number of weeks on the chart, it’s definitely possible he will receive a Best New Artist nomination.
Raye
Similar to Carpenter, Raye is not new to the game. She has been working in the industry since 2014 but in a completely different way.
Most of her popularity comes from the songs she’s written for artists. To name a few, she has written songs for Beyoncé, Little Mix, and Zara Larsson.
However, she broke into the mainstream with her song, “Escapism.” It became a TikTok viral song which helped bring Raye out into the spotlight. The song was off her February 2023 album and has close to 900 million listens on Spotify. She went on to perform the song on SNL in Apr. 2024.
Since this song’s success, she got massively recognized at the British version of the Grammys, The BRIT Awards. She won six awards breaking the record for most wins in one year.
Her story is especially impressive because she was allegedly not allowed by Polydor, her current record label, to release her album. She left Polydor and released the album independently and was able to garner such success.
However, despite achieving all of these accolades and success, the song was released before the eligibility period. She has definitely entered the mainstream but her nomination is less certain than Boone, Carpenter, and Roan’s.
If you take a look at all the artists in this market, they all have different reasons for why they may be nominated. With such a large number of possible nominations, it isn’t unlikely that all five of the above artists will receive a nomination.
However, Carpenter and Roan will without a doubt get a nomination thanks to the large impact of their music on this year’s music landscape. Make sure to keep an eye on these markets and get ready for the big reveal on November 8!
