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2024 GRAMMYs: Meet The Nominees For Songwriter Of The Year
The 2024 GRAMMY nominees for Songwriter Of The Year have arrived: Edgar Barrera, Jessie Jo Dillon, Shane McAnally, Theron Thomas, and Justin Tranter.
It's GRAMMY nominations time! Among the all-genre categories for the 2024 GRAMMYs, songwriters Edgar Barrera, Jessie Jo Dillon, Shane McAnally, Theron Thomas and Justin Tranter round out the second-ever pack of nominees for Songwriter Of The Year, Non-Classical.
After being introduced for the first time in 2023, the Songwriter Of The Year, Non-Classical category was moved to the General Field this year along with Producer Of The Year, Non-Classical. It's a monumental change for the Recording Academy's Awards process, and as Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. said, an effort to "stay aligned with the ever-evolving musical landscape."
Tobias Jesso Jr. won last year's inaugural gramophone for Songwriter Of The Year, Non-Classical, and this year's batch of nominees represent excellence in songcraft across all types of genres — from pop and hip-hop to country, K-pop, Broadway and multiple flavors of Latin music. They've worked hand in hand with global superstars like Miley Cyrus, Bad Bunny, Niall Horan, and Jungkook, and also written earworms to help up-and-coming artists like Reneé Rapp, Rels B, Tyla and Megan Moroney introduce themselves to new fans.
Before finding out who will join Tesso Jr. as the category's second-ever winner, get to know more about all five of this year's nominees below.
Edgar Barrera
Edgar Barrera, also known by his moniker Edge, has been a longtime force in Latin music, with a total of 20 Latin GRAMMYs to his name. (Last year, the Miami-based producer even led the pack with the most nominations of the night at 13.) His success has also crossed over to the GRAMMYs, where he's been nominated 17 times since breaking out in 2013; he took home the golden gramophone for Best Tropical Latin Album in 2015 for his work as a producer and recording engineer on Carlos Vives' Más Corazón Profundo.
In the years since, Barrera has become a wildly in-demand songwriter and producer and helped bring subgenres of Latin music into the spotlight, from Karol G's Tejano-leaning "Mi Ex Tenía Razón" to the Spanish hip-hop of Rels B's "yo pr1mero." Of course, the grandest feather in his cap for the year might just be serving as a co-writer on "un x100to," Bad Bunny's foray into regional Mexican music with Grupo Frontera, which shot up the Billboard Hot 100 by landing at No. 5.
In an interview with Apple Music's Zane Lowe, Benito explained why the collab was so important to him. "It's very necessary because the world needed to know more about all culture, the Latin culture — another perspective [that] is not only reggaeton and perreo and urban music," he said. "There are also other very beautiful and very wild genres of Latin music."
Jessie Jo Dillon
One could say Jessie Jo Dillon's songwriting prowess might be hereditary. Her father Dean Dillon, after all, spent his career helping define the sound of '90s country by writing a plethora of songs for George Strait, Toby Keith and Kenny Chesney. The King of Country also gave Jessie Jo her first songwriting credit after she collaborated with her dad on 2009's "The Breath You Take," which was nominated for Best Country Song at the 2011 GRAMMYs.
Fast forward to more than a decade later and the younger Dillon has carried her family legacy into the 2020s, outlining the vast and varied sounds of today's country on songs like Jelly Roll's "Halfway to Hell," Old Dominion's "Memory Lane" and HARDY's "screen." A three-time nominee before the 2024 GRAMMYs (she also received Best Country Song nods for Cole Swindell's "Break Up in the End" in 2019 and Maren Morris' "Better Than We Found It" in 2022), Dillon's work with Brandy Clark helped her earn the Songwriter Of The Year nomination as well as her fourth Best Country Song nom, for Clark's "Buried."
Shane McAnally
Shane McAnally is both a titan and a trailblazer in the world of country music, as an eight-time GRAMMY nominee who is also openly gay. After starting out his career as a solo artist, the Texan transitioned to songwriting and producing full-time after writing "Last Call" by Lee Ann Womack in the summer of 2008 and later collaborating closely with Kacey Musgraves on her 2013 debut album, Same Trailer, Different Park. (His longtime partnership with Musgraves has won McAnally all three of his GRAMMYs, including Best Country Album for Same Trailer Different Park and Best Country Song for both "Merry Go 'Round" and "Space Cowboy.")
McAnally's talents gained wider recognition throughout 2019 and 2020 as audiences watched him mentor aspiring songwriters alongside Ryan Tedder and Ester Dean for two seasons on NBC's "Songland." His 2024 Songwriter Of The Year recognition both come from his continued work in the country world (Sam Hunt's "Walmart," Walker Hayes' "Good With Me") and the ways he's expanded the scope of his writing in pop (Niall Horan's "Never Grow Up"), contemporary Christian (Lauren Daigle's "He's Never Gunna Change") and musical theater (the music and lyrics for Broadway's "Shucked," including Alex Newell's barn-storming standout "Independently Owned").
Theron Thomas
A native of St. Thomas, Theron Thomas got his start writing songs and producing as one-half of R. City with his brother Timothy Thomas. The duo initially signed a deal in 2007 under Akon's KonLive Distribution after meeting the rapper in Atlanta and writing album cut "The Rain" for his 2006 sophomore LP Konvicted. By 2015, they'd landed a top 10 hit of their own, thanks to their single "Locked Away" featuring Adam Levine, and released their debut album, What Dreams Are Made Of. The whole time, Thomas and his brother were also writing for other artists, churning out bangers for the Pussycat Dolls ("When I Grow Up"), Rihanna ("Man Down"), Miley Cyrus ("We Can't Stop") and more.
In the past year, Thomas has brought his own hit-making pen to high-profile hip-hop collabs by Chlöe and Future ("Cheatback"), Ciara and Chris Brown ("How We Roll") and Lil Durk's and J. Cole ("All My Life"). He's also worked with rising stars like Ayla and Sekou and even segued into the world of K-pop by contributing to "Seven," Jungkook's Latto-assisted debut solo single.
"I always say I'm the Chick-fil-A of the music business," Thomas said in an interview with HOT 97 in February. "I'm here to serve and I'm here to bring something to the table."
Justin Tranter
Justin Tranter has been at the forefront of pop circles since the mid-2010s, when he pivoted from fronting NYC rock band Semi Precious Weapons to life as a full-time songwriter. By 2015, he'd been named one of Rolling Stone's "20 Biggest Breakouts" of the year and penned hits for the likes of Justin Bieber ("Sorry"), Selena Gomez ("Hands to Myself"), DNCE ("Cake By the Ocean"), Fifth Harmony ("Like Mariah"), and more.
In 2023 alone, his songwriting chops have helped establish Reneé Rapp as a rising voice to watch on pop-driven tracks like "Pretty Girls" and "Gemini Moon"; given Miley Cyrus a follow-up hit to her global (and now GRAMMY-nominated) smash "Flowers" in the form of the secretly raunchy "River"; and kept Måneskin's raucous party rolling with "Honey! (Are U Coming?)," the lead single off the reissue of their third studio album Rush!, retitled Rush! (Are U Coming?). Like McAnally, Tranter also expanded his resume into musicals by overseeing the original music for Paramount+'s Grease: Rise Of The Pink Ladies.
2024 GRAMMY Nominations: See The Complete Winners & Nominees List

Photo: Leon Bennett/Getty Images for The Recording Academy
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2025 GRAMMYs: Amy Allen Becomes First Woman To Win GRAMMY For Songwriter Of The Year, Non-Classical
After a huge year of co-writing smash hits with Sabrina Carpenter and songs with stars like Tate McRae and Olivia Rodrigo, Amy Allen added a historic GRAMMY win to her ever-growing resume at the 2025 GRAMMYs.
Watch highlights from the 2025 GRAMMYs on live.GRAMMY.com.
The 2025 GRAMMYs telecast has been reimagined to raise funds for MusiCares Fire Relief, a dedicated campaign to support the people affected by the recent wildfires in the Greater Los Angeles Area. Donate now.
Amy Allen was awarded Songwriter Of The Year, Non-Classical at the 2025 GRAMMYs, making history as the first woman to win in the Category.
"The child in me that started writing songs when I was little is screaming and crying and laughing at this moment," she said onstage at the Premiere Ceremony.
The Maine native's speech also emphasized the progress songwriters have made in gaining recognition from the rest of the industry, noting the category is only in its third year. "Without us, there would be no songs," she said. "We are the engine that fuels the entire music industry."
Allen was one of four female nominees in the Songwriter Of The Year, Non-Classical Category this year, alongside Jessi Alexander, Jessie Jo Dillon and RAYE, as well as Edgar Barrera. She was nominated for her work on a string of hit songs, including Sabrina Carpenter's "Please Please Please" and "Espresso," which are currently nominated for Song Of The Year and Record Of The Year, respectively; she was also recognized for co-written tracks by Tate McRae, Olivia Rodrigo, Justin Timberlake, Leon Bridges, and Koe Wetzel.
Allen was previously nominated for Songwriter Of The Year, Non-Classical at the 2023 GRAMMYs, where she also took home a golden gramophone for Album Of The Year for her contributions to Harry Styles' Harry's House. She's nominated in the Album Of The Year Category again this year for Carpenter's Short n' Sweet; she has four GRAMMY nominations in total at the 2025 GRAMMYs, and eight nominations overall.
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5 Takeaways From Bad Bunny’s 'Debí Tirar Más Fotos': A Very Personal, Very Political Sixth Album
Recorded entirely in Puerto Rico, the 17-track release fuses the music of the island into something new and completely unique to Benito.
"Bad Bunny makes a salsa-inspired album" was not on our 2025 bingo card — at least not before the GRAMMY winner released the album singles "EL CLúB" and "PIToRRO DE COCO," in December. The distorted strains of música jíbara on the former and the plena-inspired guitar on the latter were a tip-off that a new chapter was opening.
Debí Tirar Más Fotos ("I Should Have Taken More Photos"), announced in the final week of 2024 and released on Jan. 5, sounds like nothing he’s done before. While 2023’s cinematic, trap-filled Nadie Sabe Lo Que Va a Pasar Mañana — which is nominated for Best Música Urbana Album at the 2025 GRAMMYs — was more obviously ambitious, Bad Bunny’s follow up is even more of a feat. The perpetually shapeshifting artist took distinctly Puerto Rican musical styles, including very old folk rhythms and used them both to explore his personal roots and as a symbol of resistance.
The album’s cover art is a photograph of what looks like someone’s backyard, bordered by banana trees. The only objects in the frame are two mismatched white plastic chairs. In the promotional photos for the album, he appears sunburned and dressed down in a way that suggests a rural lifestyle well inland on the island. Like many of Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio’s artistic choices, it’s both serious and self-consciously ironic. In this case, it’s an assertion of Puerto Rican identity and a deadpan comeback for critical fans who say he went Hollywood on his last album.
It’s true that BB’s feet haven’t touched the ground for, oh, his entire career. He spent 2023 doing the bicoastal hustle between New York and Los Angeles. In 2024, his Most Wanted Tour took him across North America for 48 dates, including three nights in San Juan, Puerto Rico. With upcoming roles in Adam Sandler’s Happy Gilmore 2 and the Darren Aronofsky picture Caught Stealing, he clearly isn’t done with Hollywood. Still, Debí Tirar Más Fotos finds Bad Bunny returning his attention to Puerto Rico, and finding fresh inspiration there.
Here’s five more key points we gleaned from el conejo malo’s latest.
He’s Feeling Very Grounded
Between his often emotionally honest lyrics, and history of political advocacy, no one would call the maverick of Latin trap shallow. However, until March 2024, he was twenty-something. Debí Tirar Más Fotos is an encouraging look at how the wunderkind (who will turn 31 in just a few months) has changed so many rules in the music industry, and is stepping into his third decade of life as well as the second decade of his career.
The 17-track release has intense Saturn-return energy. It finds him sounding grounded in a way that’s new. This is a mature Bad Bunny, dispensing wisdom like, "While you're alive, you should love as much as you can" — even when he’s speaking through Puerto Rican filmmaker Jacobo Morales.
If you are feeling the need to plant your feet in terra firma to prepare for whatever 2025 might hold, this is the album to add to your rotation.
It’s A Roots Album…
This is a consciously Puerto Rican album, musically as in every other way. It’s well documented that Bad Bunny loves salsa, and on "BAILE INoLVIDABLE" and "NuevaYol" he reinterprets salsa with the ear of a passionate, lifelong young fan. He also goes beyond the mezcolanza of sounds and influences identified as salsa to delve into the many roots of Puerto Rican music, including bomba and plena.
"Café con Ron" draws on plena with an assist from Los Pleneros de la Cresta. Meanwhile, the raw sound of "EoO" and "Voy a llevarte pa PR" references reggaeton’s ’90s roots.
…But It’s More Than A Roots Album
Going back to your primordial musical roots is a tried and true move for an artist at a certain point in their career, and an album that tosses a few folksy references into the mix as a statement can find its way to a corny place. Debí Tirar Más Fotos never gets there.
Expressive and thoughtful production from MAG, Tainy, and La Pacienca (the singer’s usual team of collaborators) gives the album an ethereal feel. This elevates the more traditional, acoustic elements and helps blend them into the reggaeton and electronic sounds. In the process, they end up creating entirely new fusions, as is the case with the electro-plena of "EL CLúB."
As always, Bad Bunny is more concerned with what he has to say than meeting anyone's external expectations. Figuring out where to file Debí Tirar Más Fotos is someone else’s problem.
It’s Personal, Even At Its Most Unspecific
With its eclectic mix of sounds and dreamy production, the album takes on a free-associative quality that feels like a trip through Benito's mind.
There are many singer/songwriter moments that border on Latin indie: "WELTiTA" is an actual collaboration with Puerto Rican indie band Chuwi; "TURiSTA" is a sensitive bolero sung to a past lover. "En mi vida fuiste turista / tu solo viste lo mejor de mi y no lo que yo sufría," he sings in the latter song. ("You were a tourist in my life / You only saw the best of me and not what I suffered") It can be read as a love song or a rueful reflection on actual tourism.
"Tourists come here to enjoy the beautiful places, and then they leave and they don't have to deal with the problems that Puerto Ricans have to deal with day-to-day," he told TIME magazine. "And they leave. They couldn't see that part of each one of us: the defects, the trauma, the worries, the pains, the wounds of the past. It's like they were a tourist in your life."
He has said that none of the lovelorn songs are about anyone in particular, but that’s neither here nor there. The album as a whole — the tributes to the music and artists who made him, the admission that it all represents who he is — is more vulnerable than any romantic confession could be. The permission he seems to have given himself to be this genuine, also gave him the freedom required to take his art to new heights.
It's Political & Full Of Boricua Pride
There are layers of meaning in the Debí Tirar Más Fotos’s emphatic Puerto Rican-ness. Some of those go beyond the personal and speak to larger issues around the island and its history. The album was entirely recorded in Puerto Rico and everyone involved is Puerto Rican. In addition to those already mentioned, he pulled in fellow islanders RaiNao, Omar Courtz and Dei V. The "BAILE INoLVIDABLE" features young instrumentalists from the music school Libre de Música San Juan.
"Every one of them is Puerto Rican and there for a reason," Bad Bunny told The New York Times. "When I listened to them, I felt like I was there in Santurce, hanging out."
It goes beyond feel-good gestures and includes direct protest against those who would exploit Puerto Rico and its resources and the expense of its people and culture. On "LO QUE LE PASÓ A HAWAii" he sings "Quieren quitarme el río y también la playa, quieren al barrio mío y que abuelita se vaya, no sueltes la bandera … que no quiero que hagan contigo lo que pasó a Hawaii." ("They want to take away the river and also the beach, they want my neighborhood and grandma to leave, don’t let go of the flag … I don’t want them to do with you what happened to Hawaii.")
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Photos courtesy of the finalists; Graphic courtesy of the GRAMMY Museum
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10 Finalists Announced For The 2025 Music Educator Award
Ten music teachers have been announced as finalists for the 2025 Music Educator Award. The award honors educators who have made significant contributions to music education, with the ultimate honoree to be recognized during GRAMMY Week 2025.
The 2025 GRAMMYs, officially known as the 67th GRAMMY Awards, will air live on CBS and Paramount+ on Sunday, Feb. 2. Watch highlights from the 2025 GRAMMYs on live.GRAMMY.com.
The 2025 GRAMMYs telecast will be reimagined to raise funds to support wildfire relief efforts and aid music professionals impacted by the wildfires in Los Angeles. Donate to the Recording Academy's and MusiCares' Los Angeles Fire Relief Effort To Support Music Professionals.
In light of the wildfires impacting Los Angeles, the 2025 GRAMMY Week event schedule has been repurposed to focus on raising funds to support wildfire relief efforts and aid music professionals. Donate to the Recording Academy's and MusiCares' Los Angeles Fire Relief Effort To Support Music Professionals.
A total of 10 music teachers from 10 cities across eight states have been announced as finalists for the Music Educator Award presented by the Recording Academy and GRAMMY Museum. These finalists were selected from more than 2,400 nominations submitted from 49 states.
The Music Educator Award honors teachers who have made a significant and lasting contribution to music education and demonstrate a deep commitment to maintaining music programs in schools. Finalists for the award will be announced in December, and the ultimate recipient will be recognized during GRAMMY Week 2025, just before the 2025 GRAMMYs.
Nominations for the 2026 Music Educator Award are now open.
The full list of the 2025 Music Educator Award semifinalists is as follows:
Name | School Name | City | State |
---|---|---|---|
Justin Antos | Eisenhower High School | Blue Island | Illinois |
Stephen Blanco | Las Vegas High School | Las Vegas | Nevada |
Ethan Chessin | Camas High School | Camas | Washington |
J.D. Frizzell | Briarcrest Christian School | Eads | Tennessee |
Bernie Hendricks, Jr. | Ocoee High School | Ocoee | Florida |
Jennifer Jimenez | South Miami Sr. High School | Miami | Florida |
Adrian L. Maclin | Cordova High School | Memphis | Tennessee |
Coty Raven Morris | Portland State University | Portland | Oregon |
Matthew Shephard | Meridian Early College High School | Sanford | Michigan |
Katie Silcott | Olentangy Shanahan Middle School | Lewis Center | Ohio |
The Music Educator Award is open to current U.S. music teachers. Anyone can nominate a teacher, including students, parents, friends, colleagues, community members, school deans, and administrators. Teachers can also nominate themselves. All nominated teachers are notified and invited to submit an application.
Each year, the Music Educator Award recipient is selected from 10 finalists and receives a $10,000 honorarium, along with a matching grant for their school's music program. The nine remaining finalists will each receive a $1,000 honorarium with matching school grants. The 15 semifinalists who are not selected as finalists will receive a $500 honorarium and a matching grant for their school.
The award program is supported by The Chuck Lorre Family Foundation, with additional support from the American Choral Directors Association, National Association for Music Education, NAMM Foundation, and National Education Association.
As a professional music educator, all semifinalists are eligible to apply for Professional Membership with the Recording Academy, which gives members opportunities to advocate for music creators, support future music leaders, and participate in GRAMMY Awards considerations.
Learn more about the Music Educator Award and apply to the 2026 Music Educator Award program now.
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2025 GRAMMYs Nominations: Songwriter Of The Year Nominees
Songwriters Jessi Alexander, Amy Allen, Edgar Barrera, Jessie Jo Dillon, and RAYE added their magic to some of the year's biggest songs in pop, Afrobeats and beyond.
The 2025 GRAMMYs, officially known as the 67th GRAMMY Awards, will air live on CBS and Paramount+ on Sunday, Feb. 2. Watch highlights from the 2025 GRAMMYs on live.GRAMMY.com.
The 2025 GRAMMYs telecast will be reimagined to raise funds to support wildfire relief efforts and aid music professionals impacted by the wildfires in Los Angeles. Donate to the Recording Academy's and MusiCares' Los Angeles Fire Relief Effort To Support Music Professionals.
The 2025 GRAMMY nominations are here! One of the first categories announced on Nov. 8 was Songwriter Of The Year, Non-Classical, wth Jessi Alexander, Amy Allen, Edgar Barrera, Jessie Jo Dillon and RAYE each scoring a nomination to round out this year's crop of nominees.
Last year, Theron Thomas took home the golden gramophone for his work writing with the likes of Tyla, Chlöe, Lil Durk, Cordae, and more. Last year also marked the award for songwriting being moved to the General Field after being introduced as a new Category in 2023.
This year's nominees represent songwriting excellence across a wide array of genres, using their talents to pen acclaimed and fan-loved songs in the realms of pop, Latin, R&B, Afrobeats, and beyond. They've helped superstars like Beyoncé and Post Malone make their mark on country music, helped introduce a new generation of pop stars into the zeitgeist, and two nominees even pulled double duty by penning hits for their contemporaries on top of releasing their own albums.
Check out the nominees below and read the full 2025 GRAMMYs nominations list ahead of Music's Biggest Night on Sunday, Feb. 2, 2025.
Jessi Alexander
Jessi Alexander began her career in Nashville as a country artist, releasing her major label debut, Honeysuckle Sweet, via Columbia Records in 2005. Since then, she's released two more solo albums — 2014's Down Home and 2020's Decatur County Red — independently while racking up hits as a songwriter.
In 2009, she wrote Miley Cyrus' watershed power ballad "The Climb" with collaborator Jon Mabe, and five years later earned dual nominations for Best Country Song at the 2014 GRAMMYs for penning Lee Brice's "I Drive Your Truck" and Blake Shelton's "Mine Would Be You" — both of which reached the Top 10 on Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart and went No. 1 at country radio.
Throughout 2024, Alexander has been a trusted co-writer for many a country superstar, co-writing Dustin Lynch and Jelly Roll's hit duet "Chevrolet" and working with Luke Combs across multiple projects including his fifth album, Fathers & Sons ("Remember Him That Way," "All I Ever Do Is Leave"). She's also a co-writer on Combs' "Ain't No Love in Oklahoma," the seven-time GRAMMY nominee's contribution to Twisters: The Album that earned Alexander another GRAMMY nomination this year, for Best Song Written For Visual Media.
What's more, Alexander crossed paths with fellow Songwriter Of The Year nominee Jessie Jo Dillon on Megan Moroney's sophomore album, Am I Okay? The two women wrote multiple tracks together on the studio set, including "No Caller ID," "Noah" and bonus cut "Bless Your Heart."
Amy Allen
Amy Allen's name has been synonymous with top-tier pop music for more than half a decade, ever since she started writing chart-topping hits with Halsey ("Without You"), Selena Gomez ("Back to You") and Harry Styles ("Adore You") at the end of the 2010s.
This year marks Allen's second nomination for Songwriter Of The Year, Non-Classical. The small-town Maine native and Berkelee College of Music graduate was one of the inaugural nominees in the category in 2023 — the same year she took home her first GRAMMY when Styles' Harry's House won Album Of The Year.
Allen's career as a go-to pop songwriter reached new heights in 2024. She's been a longtime collaborator of Sabrina Carpenter, and helped the doe-eyed pop chanteuse pen every track on her No. 1 (and now GRAMMY-nominated) album Short n' Sweet, including smash singles "Espresso," "Please Please Please" and "Taste." ("Amy is a once-in-a-lifetime writer and friend — it all comes to her very naturally and effortlessly," Carpenter recently gushed to Variety in a May profile of Allen. "She's super versatile: She can wear any hat and yet it still feels authentic. I've learned a lot from her and admire what an incredible collaborator she is.")
In addition to her meteoric partnership with Carpenter, Allen has also played a role in Tate McRae's career as a pop superstar on the rise, penning "run for the hills" as well as last year's breakout hit "greedy."
Earlier this fall, Allen also released her own self-titled debut solo album, Amy Allen. Her additional nominations at the 2025 GRAMMY Awards include nods for Song Of The Year for "Please, Please, Please," Album Of The Year and Pop Vocal Album for Short n' Sweet, and Best Song Written For Visual Media for *NSYNC's "Better Place" from the animated feature Trolls Band Together.
Edgar Barrera
With this year's nod, Edgar Barrera scores his second consecutive nomination for Songwriter Of The Year, Non-Classical after also being included in last year's pack of nominees. Also known under his moniker Edge, the songwriter remains a tectonic force in Latin music's ever-important place in the mainstream. As of 2023, Barrera has racked up 23 wins at the Latin GRAMMYs and once again leads this year's nominations with nine more nods at the upcoming Nov. 14 ceremony.
In the year since his first nomination in the Category, Barrera has penned Spanish-language hits for Shakira & Grupo Frontera ("(Entre Paréntesis)"), Camilo ("No Se Vale"), Karol G ("Si Antes Te Hubiera Conocido"), Peso Pluma and Kenia Os ("Tommy & Pamela") and more. He's also contributed to multiple crossover duets on Carín León's 2024 album Boca Chueca, Vol. 1 with Kane Brown ("The One (Pero No Como Yo)") and Leon Bridges ("It Was Always You (Siempre Fuiste Tú),"
This summer, Barrera added R&B to his sizable resume by working with Khalid on the crooner's long-awaited third studio album. The song Barrera co-wrote, "Sincere," ultimately became the LP's title track, with Khalid telling Apple Music's Zane Lowe, "It was a very difficult process in naming this album, because I had to find one name that fully…summed up what I felt in this music.
"And when I thought of the music," Khalid continued, "I thought of it as my most vulnerable in a while… How do I view myself as an artist? What artist do I want to be? And that's what this album is: it's sincere."
Jessie Jo Dillon
Jessie Jo Dillon joins Edgar Barrera as the other songwriter in this year's pack to earn back-to-back nominations for Songwriter of the Year, Non-Classical.
As the daughter of fellow songwriter Dean Dillon, the country progeny has music running through her veins. And much like how her father helped provide the soundtrack of '90s country through his work with George Strait, Toby Keith, Pam Tillis, and Kenny Chesney, the younger Dillon has had a hand in crafting the sound of modern country by penning tracks with Keith Urban ("Messed Up As Me"), Morgan Wallen ("Lies Lies Lies") and Kelsea Ballerini ("Sorry Mom").
This year, she also helped Megan Moroney land her first Top 10 album on the Billboard 200 with the singer's sophomore studio effort Am I Okay? — co-writing the title track and three other songs on the standard version and another on the recently released deluxe edition — and worked with her dad to co-write "Two Hearts," a bonus track on Post Malone's GRAMMY-nominated swerve into country, F-1 Trillion.
RAYE
It's a fairly safe assertion to say that RAYE was already enjoying a banner year before the 2025 GRAMMY nominations were revealed. The British soul singer broke out in 2023 with her debut solo album, My 21st Century Blues, with the independently released LP winning British Album Of The Year at the 2024 BRIT Awards. (RAYE also broke the record for most wins by an artist in a single year by taking home five other awards during the ceremony, including British Artist Of The Year and Song Of The Year for her viral single "Escapism."
However, the artist born Rachel Keen hasn't just focused on her own explosive career — in 2023, she collaborated with Hans Zimmer on sweeping single "Mother Nature" for the popular BBC nature series "Planet Earth 3," narrated by Sir David Attenborough, and translated her talent to the world of Afrobeats by co-writing NEIKED's "You're Hired" featuring Ayra Starr.
More recently, RAYE has lent her sharp, emotional songcraft to high-profile projects by superstars like Beyoncé ("RIIVERDANCE") and Jennifer Lopez ("Dear Ben, Pt II"), as well as working with the likes of Halle ("Because I Love You") and Rita Ora ("Ask & You Shall Receive").
In addition to her nod for Songwriter Of The Year, Non-Classical, RAYE is one of eight rising voices who make up this year's crop of Best New Artist nominees — thereby becoming the first artist in GRAMMYs history to be nominated in both categories. She also earned a third nomination this year for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical, for her contributions to Lucky Daye's Algorithm.