This Year’s Grammys Celebrated Music (and Protested ICE)
Music’s biggest night has come and gone, with the 68th Grammy Awards taking place on Sunday night. Amid the usual awards show pageantry — snubs, surprises, and a lengthy In Memoriam segment — this year’s ceremony became surprisingly topical, with protests against the Trump administration’s controversial anti-immigration policies, as well as the conduct of its Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. A number of artists attending the event wore “ICE OUT” pins, and the topic came up in multiple acceptance speeches throughout the night.
The most impactful statements arguably came from Bad Bunny, through two speeches for wins for his album Debí Tirar Más Fotos. He began his speech for Best Música Urbana Album with: “Before I say thanks to God, I’m going to say ICE OUT. We’re not savages, we’re not animals. We are humans, and we are Americans.”
“The hate gets more powerful with more hate,” he continued. “The only thing that is more powerful than hate is love. So please, we need to be different. If we fight, we have to do it with love. We don’t hate them — we love our family. Don’t forget it. That’s how we do it, with love.”
Later in the night, Bad Bunny once again referred to the topic in his acceptance speech for Album of the Year. In a speech spoken in both English and Spanish, he dedicated the award “to all the people who had to leave their home, their country, to follow their dreams.”
Bad Bunny’s comments easily became the most noteworthy, especially with his headlining performance at this year’s Super Bowl halftime show now less than a week away. For a lot of reasons, there has already been plenty of chatter and speculation around what political statement he might make during the halftime show. The initial announcement that he would be doing the halftime show was already met with a slew of conservative backlash, with comments about Bad Bunny’s heritage and largely-Spanish-speaking music being met with racist remarks. That, the state of the world, and the headline-making statement Kendrick Lamar made during the 2025 halftime show, definitely have people eager to see what Bad Bunny does, and these Grammy speeches only further fueled that.
The Grammys Make a Statement!
These anti-ICE comments absolutely were not exclusive to Bad Bunny. Olivia Dean, who took home the award for Best New Artist, said in part: “I’m up here as a granddaughter of an immigrant. I’m a product of bravery, and I think those people deserve to be celebrated. We’re nothing without each other.”
Later in the night, Billie Eilish began her Song of the Year acceptance speech with: “No one is illegal on stolen land,” adding that “It’s just really hard to know what to say and what to do right now. “And I just I feel really hopeful in this room, and I feel like we just need to keep fighting and speaking up and protesting, and our voices really do matter, and the people matter.”
SZA, who won the Record of the Year award for her and Kendrick Lamar’s “Luther”, included a similar sentiment in her speech, telling the audience: “Please don’t fall into despair. I know that right now is a scary time. I know the algorithms tell us that it’s so scary, and all is lost. But there’s been world wars, there’s been plagues, and we have gone on. We can go on.”
“We need each other,” SZA continued. “We need to trust each other and trust ourselves. Trust your heart. We’re not governed by the government. We’re governed by God.”
Even Harvey Mason jr., chief executive officer of the Grammys’ governing body, the Recording Academy, addressed the uncertainty of the current word in his speech: “When words fail, music speaks.”
(featured image: Kevin Winter/Getty Images for The Recording Academy)
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