GRAM MY AWARDS

BEST NEW ARTIST

CHLOE X HALLE GRETA VAN FLEET Nearly five years before they released their 2018 debut album, The Kids Are In a category that boasts multiple acts in R&B, pop and country, the members Alright, and her younger sister Halle shared a fateful video on of Greta Van Fleet are representing new rock artists with one of the most YouTube. The teen R&B duo’s cover of Beyoncé’s “” was posted brazenly retro aesthetics in the genre. A Michigan hard-rock group heavily in December 2013 and eventually garnered 15 million views after Queen Bey influenced by and The Who, the quartet flaunts a ’70s rock sound herself caught wind of the rendition and shared the clip on her Facebook and fashion and has been playing to increasingly bigger audiences since the page. Since then, Chloe x Halle have signed to Beyoncé’s Parkwood band’s debut EP, , arrived in 2017. Frontman Josh Kiszka Entertainment label and released a series of EPs leading up to The Kids Are and his brothers, bassist Sam and guitarist Jake, began writing tunes after Alright. With sumptuous rhythms and features from Joey Bada$$, Goldlink school together and eventually brought in drummer Danny Wagner for jam and Kari Faux, the album demonstrates how the sisters have grown into sessions in their garage. Now they’re up for four Grammys, including best rock nuanced yet powerful R&B vocalists since being discovered. song for the “Black Smoke Rising” title track.

From left: Chloe x Halle, Greta Van Fleet, Combs and H.E.R.

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S Y E LUKE COMBS H.E.R. T G T A E G M / I

N Y I T With a deep voice that rumbles forward and an ear for hooks that connect The only best new artist nominee who also appears in the album of the P T M E E G K /

N N O at country radio, Luke Combs has quickly established himself as one of the year category, H.E.R. has become one of R&B’s most visible new stars after O S S L A E J

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genre’s most bankable newcomers. The singer-songwriter from Asheville, beginning her career in the shadows. The vocalist kept her identity a secret B D

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N.C., moved to Nashville after his debut single, “Hurricane,” was issued in when she launched H.E.R. in 2016, before eventually revealing herself as Gabi S I

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2015, becoming a force on the country charts after Combs inked a deal Wilson, a 21-year-old former child prodigy who signed her first recording deal H L

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with Columbia Nashville to rerelease the song the following year. More as a young teenager. H.E.R.’s RCA Records labelmates Alicia Keys and Bryson I F I E R R I G - W R / E

No. 1 hits on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart followed, including the Tiller championed the singer-songwriter as she released a series of EPs during P U P A A B S

/ A E C spunky “When It Rains It Pours” and the pensive “One Number Away,” and the past two years. Her self-titled debut album comprises songs from two of L C L E E X B E A

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Combs cracked the top 10 of the with his debut LP, This those earlier projects, and features “Best Part,” a duet with contemporary R&B : Y T E E L I E A L One’s for You, in 2017. star Daniel Caesar that also appears on his acclaimed first album, Freudian. B F

62 BILLBOARD | DECEMBER 22, 2018