Did Canada have a good night at the 2025 Grammy Awards?

It's hard to be mad about how the Grammy Awards played out last night.

Beyoncé finally won the coveted album of the year award. Doechii and Chappell Roan gave memorable speeches as they accepted their first Grammys. And Billie Eilish, Charli XCX and Sabrina Carpenter lit up the stage with electric performances.

But amidst all the joy, it's hard to deny that from where some people were sitting, there was a bit of an elephant in the room: that is, Canada did not have a strong presence at music's biggest night — but a certain diss track certainly did.

Today on Commotion, culture critic/podcaster Pablo the Don and music journalists Carl Wilson and Rosie Long Decter join host Elamin Abdelmahmoud to share their morning-after reactions to the big wins and surprises from last night's Grammy Awards — including Kendrick Lamar's dominance with his track Not Like Us.

We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud on your favourite podcast player.

Elamin: Two major categories — song of the year, which awards best songwriter, and then also record of the year — these categories, again, [had some] heavy hitters here: Good Luck, Babe! [by] Chappell Roan, Espresso [by Sabrina Carpenter], A Bar Song from Shaboozey. But then both awards went to Kendrick Lamar, Not Like Us. 

Pablo, that is a diss track, pal. It's a significant deal that a diss track wins this particular category. It's tough out here in Canada: news of the tariffs over the weekend, and then Kendrick Lamar goes on stage and wins for a diss of a Canadian — and not just that, but wearing a Canadian tuxedo. Talk to me about the significance of Kendrick Lamar winning for this song. 

Pablo: I mean, first of all, you've got one more week left of adventures coming next week; Drake will again get his feet whooped with the Super Bowl coming up. 

Elamin: That's right, Kendrick is headlining the Super Bowl in literally six days from today.

Pablo: Yes. But the significance is there. I mean, who would have ever thought that we'd be at this moment? But also it's Kendrick Lamar, Pulitzer Prize winner. Yes, we're at this moment. I will never forget Drake getting up there, winning a Grammy, and being like, "It's not really all about the Grammys." The Grammys said, "This is our time to shine. Let's go ahead and continue embarrassing the boy. Let's go ahead and let this man sweep the categories off a diss track."

I mean, the significance is just it's Kendrick Lamar. You couldn't fight against it being Kendrick, number one; the song was going to be great. Then on top of that, we're embarrassing somebody who tried to embarrass us, and rubbing it in so hard. And then we know that we're going to be the first layer of, like, a double-layer chocolate cake when he comes next week and performs it in the Super Bowl, hopefully five times over. Like, this is just nuts work right now. America has a problem, and his name is Kendrick Lamar against Drake.

Elamin: It is unrelenting. Literally next week will be the Super Bowl. That's step two. Step three is this man is taking a tour across North America on the strength of this one song. Who knew that hate could be so powerful? They tell you love is more powerful than hate. I'm not sure that is entirely true anymore, after seeing where Kendrick has been able to take his, like, "I really just don't like him. I don't like this man"

Pablo: This has solidified that I will never stop being a hater for the rest of the year, because hating gets you wins! Hating gets you wins now. So I must 

Elamin: What an inspiration, the idea that hate gets you all the way to two major Grammys. He won five Grammys for that song yesterday, by the way….

Rosie, last time you were on the show, we talked about how Canadian artists were having a bit of a hard time dominating the charts last year. How did Canada show up last night, for you? 

Rosie: A little bit muted, maybe. The biggest moment we had was The Weeknd making his comeback…. He'd been boycotting after he was snubbed a few years ago, I think 2021. They really sort of made an example of him last night. You had the CEO of the Recording Academy saying, "We have changed so much that The Weeknd is willing to perform on our stage again," and then they brought out The Weeknd. And I think maybe they maybe they earned that moment in what we saw from the awards, you know? We saw a real shift in the traditionalism of the Grammys last night, and The Weeknd was sort of the symbol of that. 

And then Canadians, yeah, we're not seeing Canadians winning the big artist awards this year. Maybe that's a trend going forward. Maybe it's an off year. But Canadians had big songwriting roles on Beyoncé's Cowboy Carter. We saw Scott Zhang win for best R&B song; he wrote on Sza's Saturn. So we're behind the scenes, but we're maybe not out in front like we used to be.

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Panel produced by Stuart Berman.