Grammy Awards Signal a Changing Music Industry

Bruno Mars,

who like Mr. Lamar was up for Album of the Year, took several R&B prizes, including Best R&B Album for “24K Magic.” Another winner early in the evening was Canadian singer-songwriter

Alessia Cara,

who took home the trophy for Best New Artist.

“Support real music and real artists,” she said. “Everyone deserves the same shot.”

Organized by the Recording Academy and emceed by “Late Late Show” host

James Corden,

the night kicked off with a performance by Mr. Lamar that included appearances by U2’s Bono and the Edge as well as comedian

Dave Chappelle.

At one point, Mr. Lamar was surrounded onstage by men dressed in red, who fell to the ground in rapid succession amid the sound of gunfire.

“The only thing more frightening than watching a black man be honest in America is being an honest black man in America,” Mr. Chappelle said.

In a nod to the birthplace of hip-hop, the Grammy Awards were held this year in New York City for the first time in 15 years. Singers Tony Bennett and John Legend presented the evening’s first televised award, singing a few bars of “New York, New York” before reading the nominees.

Four of this year’s five nominees for Album of the Year, the show’s most prestigious award, are nonwhite hip-hop and R&B artists, a sign of the Recording Academy’s awareness of the industry’s changes. Mr. Corden, who is white and hosting the show for the second time, acknowledged it during his opening monologue, joking that “we don’t just have the most diverse group of nominees in Grammys’ history, we also have, for the second year in a row, the least diverse host in Grammys’ history.”

While the Grammys have for years given awards for Best Rap Album and other genre-specific categories, 2018 marked a significant increase in the number of hip-hop and R&B artists competing for the top awards: Album of the Year; Record of the Year, which recognizes a song’s performers, producers and engineers; Song of the Year, devoted to songwriters; and Best New Artist.

For hip-hop and R&B artists, winning big prizes isn’t just academic: Of the 84 trophies, only a dozen or so are televised, and these widely watched TV moments can attract mainstream fans and drive sales and streams.

Mr. Lamar headed into the evening as the Album of the Year front-runner for “DAMN.” According to Nielsen Music, the album, which includes the No. 1 hit “HUMBLE.,” generated 2.7 million consumption units last year, including physical sales, individual tracks and audio streams, making it 2017’s most popular hip-hop and R&B album.

Critics have praised the album as his most emotional work, but Mr. Lamar has been up for the award twice before and lost to other nominees. This year, his competitors included New Zealand pop star Lorde for her intimate album “Melodrama.” A Lorde win would make the 21-year-old one of the youngest solo artists to win Album of the Year.

Also nominated for Album of the Year were rapper Jay-Z, whose album “4:44” didn’t receive the critical acclaim that Mr. Lamar’s and Lorde’s did; surprise contender Childish Gambino (the alter ego of “Atlanta” creator

Donald Glover

) and Mr. Mars.

Among the evening’s snubs: SZA, a 27-year-old R&B singer whose soul-baring “Ctrl” album was among 2017’s best-reviewed records. She was nominated for five awards but didn’t win any.

Several attendees wore or held white roses to support #TimesUp, a Hollywood-driven anti-sexual-harassment initiative, including rapper Cardi B and

Ron Perry,

chief executive of Columbia Records. Pop singer

Kesha

was expected to perform her song, “Praying,” about overcoming feeling wronged, a nod to the #MeToo movement.

This year’s show included performances by

Lady Gaga,

singing songs from her latest album, “Joanne”; Childish Gambino; and a vibrant team-up by Cardi B and Bruno Mars. Other scheduled performances include Rihanna and DJ Khaled and

Chris Stapleton.

Country stars

Maren Morris,

Eric Church and Brothers Osborne were expected to honor the 58 people killed at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas and other victims of gun violence.

Neil Diamond,

who announced his retirement from touring earlier this month because of a Parkinson’s disease diagnosis; Queen;

Tina Turner

and Americana matriarch Emmylou Harris were this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award recipients.

The move by the Recording Academy’s roughly 13,000 voting members to fully embrace hip-hop and R&B is a long time coming.

This decade, previous Album of the Year winners have been white artists in other musical genres: Arcade Fire, Mumford & Sons, Daft Punk, Beck, as well as

Taylor Swift

and

Adele,

both of whom have won twice.

Before Sunday night, only 10 black artists had won Album of the Year in 59 years, and only two of them, Outkast and

Lauryn Hill,

were hip-hop musicians. Song and Record of the Year had never gone to a rapper’s tune.

Things came to a boil last year, when the #GrammysSoWhite hashtag circulated on social media, and British singer Adele apologized to her competitor Beyoncé during her Album of the Year acceptance speech.

In 2018, the seven most-nominated artists, led by Jay-Z and Mr. Lamar, were hip-hop and R&B performers, including 19-year-old R&B singer

Khalid.

Unlike past years, hip-hop’s nominations weren’t concentrated among a few select names, like Kanye West, but spread out, from Atlanta trio Migos to 35-year-old Rapsody, one of the few female rappers nominated.

Another closely watched nominee: “Despacito” by

Luis Fonsi

and Daddy Yankee featuring

Justin Bieber.

Co-written by Erika Ender, the song is mostly in Spanish, a rarity for a Song of the Year nominee, but it spent 16 weeks at No. 1. This year, it was up for that award as well as Record of the Year.

Write to Neil Shah at neil.shah@wsj.com