Lady Gaga arrives at the 2018 Grammy Awards sporting a white rose. (Jamie McCarthy / Getty Images)There were times early Sunday when the plethora of social and political issues on the minds of musicians at the 60th Grammy Awards were so strong that it was easy to forget the ceremony was also an awards show, one that this year will take the industry's embrace of hip-hop to a new level. Topics of sexual harassment, racism, gun violence, mental health and suicide prevention look to figure prominently in performances and speeches this evening from the participants in the music industry's signature event, held at Madison Square Garden in New York for the first time in 15 years to mark the sixth decade of the Recording Academy's big night. In fact, the ceremony was upstaged to some degree even before it began, trumped by a presidential tweet Sunday morning that snapped back at leading Grammy nominee Jay-Z for an interview the veteran rapper gave the previous night, criticizing the chief executive for his reported slam at "shithole countries" in Africa during a recent meeting on immigration reform.

Source: Los Angeles Times January 29, 2018 00:48 UTC