Look at all the KC musicians up for Grammy Awards this year

“Music’s biggest night” will feature a healthy dose of Kansas City this year. Local artists, spanning a variety of genres, have garnered a number of nominations at this year’s Grammy Awards, airing Sunday Jan. 28.

▪ Music producer Anthony White, who grew up in Kansas City, Kan., and goes by “J. White,” is up for best rap song for one of the biggest hits of 2017, Cardi B’s “Bodak Yellow (Money Moves).” Cardi B is also a nominee for best rap performance.

White composed and produced the beat for “Bodak Yellow.” Last summer, the single supplanted Taylor Swift as a Billboard No. 1 song and launched Cardi B., a former reality TV personality, into a bona fide rap star. So much so that she’ll take the stage Sunday to perform alongside pop star Bruno Mars.

▪ Bishop Cortez Vaughn, also of KCK, is up for best gospel performance/song for “You Deserve It,” with JJ Hairston & Youthful Praise.

Who would’ve thought a song crafted in the middle of a worship service three years ago would become one of the biggest gospel songs of 2017? Vaughn helped write, produce and record this touching ode to humility and gratitude. The song spent more than 40 weeks atop the Billboard Gospel charts and has more than 40 million global YouTube views.

▪ Michael Stern and the Kansas City Symphony are up for two Grammys: for best engineered album/classical and for contemporary classical composition. Both are for the album “American Symphony — Finding Rothko — Picture Studies,” composed by Adam Schoenberg. A devotion to the works of Schoenberg, the album was considered one of the best classical releases of 2017 by many music critics. In a review for The Star, Patrick Neas called the album vibrant, engaging and a stunning sound.

▪ Joyce DiDonato, the world-renowned mezzo-soprano who grew up in Prairie Village, was nominated for best classical solo vocal album for “In War & Peace: Harmony Through Music.” “After the attacks in Paris … I felt the need to program something that directly addressed my desire to promote peace,” DiDonato told The Star in 2016 in advance of her tour stop here promoting her album of Baroque music.

The Grammys will air at 6:30 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 28, on CBS.

This story was originally published January 25, 2018 at 1:08 PM with the headline "Look at all the KC musicians up for Grammy Awards this year."