Why Luther Vandross is trending after the Grammys

OK, so you're going to see a lot about Luther Vandross, Kendrick Lamar, Cher, and the Grammys on your feed today.

The setting? The 68th Annual Grammy Awards on Sunday night. The category? Record of the Year. The announcement? Here's what happened.

Onstage at Los Angeles' Crypto.com Arena, Cher was about to present Lamar with his fifth Grammy of the night — an evening in which the rapper made history. Set to read out the winner for Record of the Year, the Goddess of Pop opened the prized envelope — however, she thought the winner would also be on the event's teleprompter. After a brief moment, she then read out the winner from the card: Lamar's ballad with SZA, "luther."

But what Cher actually said was "Luther Vandross," naming not Lamar or SZA but the all-time music legend who passed away in 2005, prompting social media to erupt.

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"luther" does have Vandross at its core, with the track sampling his 1982 hit with Cheryl Lynn "If This World Were Mine," which was a cover of Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell's 1967 duet.

The song, from Lamar's freshly Grammy-awarded 2024 album, GNX, was written by Lamar and SZA with Ink and Sam Dew, and produced by Sounwave, Kamasi Washington, Jack Antonoff, Scott Bridgeway, M-Tech, and roselilah. "luther" took home two Grammys on Sunday, including Record of the Year and Best Melodic Rap Performance.

During Sunday's acceptance speech, producer Sounwave paid tribute to Vandross, saying, "First and foremost, let's give a shout out to the late great Luther Vandross. It was very, very, very important to keep the integrity of this record."

Up next was Lamar, who also honoured Vandross, saying, "This is what music is about." (The artist did take a moment to say the artist's full name aloud with a smile, which felt like it cleared the Cher air.)

"This is special for me, I gotta take my time," he said. "Because it's one of my favorite artists of all time, and they granted us the privilege to do our version of it. When we got that clearance, I promise you, we damn near all dropped a tear because we know how much young miss Cheryl Lynn poured into that record. And being able to put our vocals over it, it proves that we were somewhat worthy to be just as great."

Lamar then thanked 68-year-old Lynn — "If you out there, listening, watching, we appreciate you," — and mentioned that the only proviso on using the sample for "luther" was no cursing.

Now, here's the part I want you to take away from the whole trending moment: SZA's speech. The artist thanked Lamar "for lifting me up," before giving the audience one hell of a moving reality check.

"What I really wanted to say is, please don't fall into despair," said SZA. "I know that right now is a scary time. I know the algorithms tell us that it's so scary and all is lost. There's been world wars, there's been plagues, and we have gone on. We can go on. We need each other."

Later on the red carpet, SZA was asked by Entertainment Tonight about Cher’s "Luther Vandross" moment and she put it straight, saying, "We share the frequency of the song, like, that’s his frequency that allowed us to win and allowed it to be memorable, so she's not wrong. And she’s from that era, she probably really knew Luther Vandross. 

"Of course, her brain and her energy is connecting that energy to the energy that we’re sharing," she added. "We’re mooching off of what Luther already gave us, so we’re grateful. I wish I could speak to him. Thank you, Luther."

You can watch Lamar, SZA and Sounwave's acceptance speech above and check out the full list of winners at the 2026 Grammys.