N.W.A, Donna Summer, Gladys Knight & More to Receive 2024 Recording Academy Lifetime Achievement Awards: Full List

Other 2024 Special Merit Award honorees include Laurie Anderson, The Clark Sisters, Tammy Wynette and Peter Asher.

MC Ren, DJ Yella, Eazy-E and Dr. Dre of the rap group NWA pose for a portrait in 1991 in New York, New York. DJ Yella is giving the middle-finger.

Al Pereira/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

Laurie Anderson, The Clark Sisters, Gladys Knight, N.W.A, Donna Summer and Tammy Wynette are the Recording Academy’s 2024 lifetime achievement award honorees. Also announced on Friday (Jan. 5), Peter Asher, DJ Kool Herc and Joel Katz are trustees award recipients; Tom Kobayashi and Tom Scott are technical Grammy award honorees; and “Refugee,” written by K’naan, Steve McEwan, and Gerald Eaton (a.k.a. Jarvis Church), is being honored with the best song for social change award.

The Recording Academy’s 2024 Special Merit Award honorees, as they are collectively known, will be saluted at a Grammy Week ceremony on Feb. 3 at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Los Angeles.

“The Academy is honored to pay tribute to this year’s Special Merit Award recipients — a remarkable group of creators and industry professionals whose impact resonates with generations worldwide,” Harvey Mason jr., CEO of the Recording Academy, said in a statement. “Their contributions to music span genres, backgrounds and crafts, reflecting the rich diversity that fuels our creative community. We look forward to honoring these music industry trailblazers next month as part of our week-long celebration leading up to Music’s Biggest Night.”

Two of this year’s honorees are current Grammy nominees. Laurie Anderson is nominated for best historical album for Words & Music, May 1965 (Deluxe Edition). Karen Clark-Sheard of The Clark Sisters is nominated on her own for best gospel performance/song for “God Is Good.”

Four are being honored posthumously – Donna Summer, Tammy Wynette, Eazy-E of N.W.A, and sound engineer Tom Kobayashi.

Here’s a quick look at this year’s 11 Special Merit Award honorees:

Laurie Anderson: Lifetime Achievement Award

Grammys won: 1

Age: 76

Notes: Anderson’s groundbreaking works span the worlds of art, theater, experimental music and technology. As a performer and musician, she has worked with such varied collaborators as Brian Eno, Jean-Michel Jarre, William S. Burroughs, Peter Gabriel, Robert Wilson, Christian McBride and Philip Glass. In 2002, Anderson was appointed the first artist-in-residence of NASA, which culminated in her 2004 touring solo performance The End of the Moon. Anderson won a Grammy for best chamber music/small ensemble performance five years ago for Landfall, a collaboration with the Kronos Quartet.

The Clark Sisters: Lifetime Achievement Award

Grammys won: 2

Members: Jacky, Elbernita, Dorinda and Karen Clark

Notes: The Clark Sisters are an American gospel vocal group which initially consisted of five sisters; Denise left the group early on. The sisters are considered pioneers of contemporary gospel. Their biggest hits include “Livin,’” “Victory” and their signature hit, “You Brought the Sunshine.” The Clark Sisters won two Grammys in 2008 — best traditional gospel album for Live – One Last Time and best gospel performance for “Blessed and Highly Favored.” Karen Clark won a third Grammy that year as a songwriter on that song. The Clark Sisters are the top-selling female gospel group in history.

Gladys Knight: Lifetime Achievement Award

Grammys won: 7

Age: 79

Notes: Gladys Knight has enjoyed smash hits in pop, gospel, R&B and adult contemporary. In 1974, Gladys Knight & the Pips became the first R&B act to open the Grammy telecast (with their instant-classic, Hot 100 topping “Midnight Train to Georgia”). Later in the show, they became the first group to win in both pop and R&B categories the same night. (Their pop award was for the ballad “Neither One of Us (Wants to Be the First to Say Goodbye).” Gladys has won two Grammys each in pop, R&B and gospel and one in traditional R&B.

Knight and the Pips were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996 by Mariah Carey. On her own, Gladys was a 2021 National Medal of Arts recipient from the NEA and received the Kennedy Center Honors in 2022.

N.W.A: Lifetime Achievement Award

Grammys won: 0

Members: Eazy-E (died in 1995), Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, DJ Yella and MC-Ren

Notes: N.W.A is the fifth rap group to receive a lifetime achievement award from the Recording Academy in the past eight years, following Run-DMC, Public Enemy, Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five and Salt-N-Pepa. (In addition, Slick Rick, who rose to prominence in Doug E. Fresh & the Get Fresh Crew, was honored on his own last year.) The group from Compton, Calif. is credited with inventing gangsta rap. In 1988, N.W.A released their classic album Straight Outta Compton, which became an underground hit with little support from radio or MTV. Although the group was short-lived, gangsta rap became the most popular form of hip-hop during the early to mid-1990s. The group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2016 by Kendrick Lamar.

Donna Summer: Lifetime Achievement Award

Grammys won: 5

Died: 2012 at age 63

Notes: Summer rocketed to international stardom with her groundbreaking merger of R&B, soul, pop, funk, rock, disco and avant-garde electronica, catapulting underground dance music out of the clubs of Europe and bringing it to the world. Summer was the first female artist to win Grammy Awards in four different genres: R&B (“Last Dance”), rock (“Hot Stuff”), inspirational (“He’s a Rebel” and “Forgive Me”) and dance (“Carry On”). Summer was the first artist to win a Grammy for best rock vocal performance, female (1980, “Hot Stuff”) and was the first recipient of the Grammy for best dance recording (1998, “Carry On”).

Summer is the only solo artist with three consecutive double albums that hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200, and was the first female artist to have four No. 1 singles in a 12-month period on the Billboard Hot 100. Summer was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2013 by Kelly Rowland.

Tammy Wynette: Lifetime Achievement Award

Grammys won: 2

Died: 1998 at age 55

Notes: Wynette first hit the music scene in 1966 with “Apartment #9” after moving to Nashville and teaming up with record producer Billy Sherrill. Together, the pair wrote songs that reflected the things Wynette felt were important in her life. In 1968, Wynette released the classic “Stand by Your Man.” By 1970, she had racked up nine No. 1 hits on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart, was named the Country Music Association’s female vocalist of the year three times, and had won two Grammys.

Wynette’s first Grammy, in 1968, was for best country & western solo vocal performance, female. By the time of her second, in 1970, the Grammys had dropped the dated terminology “country & western” in favor of the more modern “country.” Wynette’s sophisticated records helped force the change. Wynette was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1998, the year of her death.

Peter Asher: Trustees Award

Grammys won: 3

Age: 79

Notes: Asher’s career began in 1964 as one-half of Peter & Gordon, whose recording of Lennon/McCartney’s “A World Without Love” topped the Hot 100 in June 1964. Seven more top 20 hits followed before Asher became head of A&R for The Beatles’ Apple Records in 1968, where he discovered, produced and managed James Taylor; later adding Linda Ronstadt, Neil Diamond, 10,000 Maniacs, Cher, Diana Ross, Kenny Loggins, Bonnie Raitt, Robin Williams, Stevie Nicks, Lyle Lovett, Morrissey, Steve Martin & Edie Brickell, Ed Sheeran and more to his list of credits. Asher is one of the relatively few people to top the Hot 100 first as an artist and later as a producer (of Taylor’s “You’ve Got a Friend” in 1971).

Asher won the Grammy for producer of the year, non-classical in both 1978 and 1990. He won a third Grammy in 2003 for producing Robin Williams – Live 2002. He hosts a hit radio show “From Me to You” on Sirius XM.

DJ Kool Herc: Trustees Award

Grammys won: 0

Age: 68

Notes: Herc is frequently credited as the creator of hip-hop. His mastery at the turntables is known worldwide, as are his positive contributions to the evolution of hip-hop culture. Herc’s popularity rose by playing long sets of assorted rhythm breaks strung together. Unlike most of his DJ counterparts, Herc is not a rapid rapper, but he is a musical innovator. He introduced the practice of using two turntables to make the beats last longer, creating the illusion of one long break. Herc was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame last year in the musical influence category by LL Cool J.

Joel Katz: Trustees Award

Grammys won: 0

Age: 79

Notes: Katz has represented such superstar clients as Michael Jackson, Justin Timberlake, Jimmy Buffett, Julio Iglesias and Willie Nelson as well as such executives as L.A. Reid and Republic Records’ Monte and Avery Lipman. He has also served as an outside general counsel for the Recording Academy. He is credited with leading the negotiations for the Grammys’ 10-year, $500 million deal with CBS in 2016. The Academy has rewarded a handful of Grammy insiders with trustees awards over the years, including Christine Farnon, the Academy’s first full-time employee; Pierre Cossette, who was instrumental in turning the Grammys into a live telecast; Walter C. Miller, the show’s longtime director; and Ken Ehrlich, who produced or executive produced the telecast for 40 years.

At Kennesaw State University, Katz endowed and began a commercial music program. He has authored and co-authored many articles on topics concerning entertainment law. In honor of his work, the University of Tennessee College of Law dedicated its law library in his name. Katz was the founding chairman of Greenberg Traurig’s entertainment and media practice, but resigned “by mutual understanding” from the firm on the last day of 2020.

Tom Kobayashi and Tom Scott: Technical Grammy Award Honorees

Grammys won: 0

Notes: Kobayashi, who died in 2020 at age 91, and Scott (the sound engineer, not the saxophonist of the same name) met at Lucasfilm’s Skywalker Sound in 1985. Together, they launched the Entertainment Digital Network, also known as “EDnet,” which employed fiber-optic networks to send high-quality video and audio great distances. Its then-revolutionary technology enabled the industry to link together talent, executives and production facilities at great cost savings. For 25 years, the company connected hundreds of recording studios worldwide in the days before the Internet could handle high-quality audio. EDnet became a part of Onstream Media, and over the decades, tens of thousands of long-distance collaboration sessions were facilitated for the music, advertising, TV and cinema businesses. Scott won back-to-back Academy Awards for best sound for The Right Stuff in 1984 and Amadeus in 1985.

K’naan’s “Refugee”: Best Song for Social Change Award Honoree

Notes: This award honors songwriter(s) of message-driven music that speaks to the social issues of our time and has demonstrated and inspired positive global impact. The award was introduced last year, when it went to Iranian singer-songwriter Shervin Hajipour for “Baraye.”

In June 2023, Somali-Canadian rapper K’naan released the inspiring single “Refugee,” co-written by Steve McEwan, who won two Grammys two years ago for work with Jon Batiste, and Gerald Eaton, a 2001 Grammy nominee for producer of the year, non-classical (in tandem with Brian West).

“Refugee” interweaves personal and political narratives, and serves as a tribute to refugees around the world. K’naan drew inspiration from his personal experiences, aiming to redefine the traditional perception of the term “refugee” into a symbol of resilience and strength. K’naan, 45, was nominated in a comparable category, best video with a message, at the 2012 MTV Video Music Awards for “Is Anybody Out There?,” a collaboration with Nelly Furtado.

Get weekly rundowns straight to your inbox

Sign Up