If “Luther” Wins Song of the Year, Grammy History Gets Complicated
(January 6, 2026) – The 2026 Grammys are fast approaching, but it’s a 2014 rule change that may cause the most controversy when the awards are handed out next month.
Beginning in 2014, the Recording Academy allowed songs that use samples to be eligible for the coveted Song of the Year award – a trophy that recognizes excellence in songwriting. The award goes to only those artists who are officially credited as songwriters on a recording during the year of eligibility.
There are eleven such songwriters on the nominated No. 1 hit “Luther” by Kendrick Lamar & SZA, which earned the coveted triple crown by topping the Hot 100, Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs and Hot Rap Songs charts in 2025 and became the biggest hit of that year on the latter two rankings. It is also a multiple-Grammy nominee with nods for Best Melodic Rap Performance, Record of the Year, and Song of the Year, as well as helping earn Best Rap Album and Album of the Year nominations for its parent album, Lamar’s GNX.
But it is the Song of the Year award – should “Luther” win it – that might cause the most stir. That’s because one of its eleven credited songwriters — Marvin Gaye, who wrote the original composition on which “Luther” is based — would not receive the Song of the Year Grammy under current Recording Academy rules.
The Academy, which presides over the Grammys, decided that the trophy should go to the songwriter who wrote the lyrics and/or melodies of the song in question. “Song” in this context means the song as composed, not as recorded (which is what one of the other Big Four awards — Record of the Year — recognizes).
These are boxes Gaye seemingly checks as he wrote both the refrain (“If this world were mine”) and the underlying melody on which “Luther” was based. The Recording Academy further states, however, that if a song contains samples or interpolations of existing material, the publisher and songwriter(s) of the original song(s) are not eligible for SOTY but can apply for a “Winners Certificate.”
Really? A piece of paper?
History for Eleven Minus One
If “Luther” wins Song of the Year, it would shatter the current record for most credited songwriters on a winning composition — ten in total. Those would include Kendrick Lamar and SZA (Solána Rowe), along with Jack Antonoff, Roshwita Larisha Bacha, Matthew Bernard, Ink, Scott Bridgeway, Sam Dew, Mark Anthony Spears, and Kamasi Washington. Currently, the record for most songwriters on a Song of the Year is Bruno Mars’ 2018 winner, “That’s What I Like,” with eight listed composers including Mars himself.
Bruno factors into this year’s history-making potential as well. If his nominated “APT.” duet with K-pop singer ROSÉ wins the award, it would recognize all nine of its songwriters, placing it ahead of Mars’ 2018 winner and giving him ownership of the two songs with the most songwriters on a SOTY trophy.
But “APT.” isn’t a sample of an earlier tune and thus none of its writers are being penalized by the Grammy academy’s rule. “Luther” famously samples the Luther Vandross & Cheryl Lynn remake of Marvin Gaye’s “If This World Were Mine,” which he wrote by himself and first recorded in 1967 with Tammi Terrell. It’s arguable that Gaye contributed more to the composition of “Luther” than any one of the eight other songwriters not named Kendrick or SZA.
This development is potentially even more upsetting to Gaye fans who’ve alleged that his work has been pilfered in the 21st century by the likes of Robin Thicke and Ed Sheeran, the former of whom ended up being successfully sued for liberally borrowing from “Got to Give it Up” (for 2013’s “Blurred Lines”), while the latter escaped the same fate when Gaye’s estate unsuccessfully claimed that his 2014 single “Thinking Out Loud” sounded a little too close to the 1973 soul classic “Let’s Get It On.” Ironically, “Thinking” won the Song of the Year Grammy for Sheeran and co-writer Amy Wadge in 2016. “Blurred Lines” predated the 2014 rule change and was therefore ineligible for SOTY.
Gaye’s Surprising Grammy History
Gaye himself has never won a songwriters award at the Grammys, although he was nominated once – for 1982’s “Sexual Healing.” “Healing,” which postdated the Prince of Soul’s Motown glory, lost the award for Best R&B Song but won Gaye two awards for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance and Best R&B Instrumental Performance, which happened to be the only two competitive Grammys he ever secured. The legendary crooner was given a Lifetime Achievement Award posthumously in 1996, while five of his recordings – all also posthumously – were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame: “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” “I Heard it Through the Grapevine,” “Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology),” and the What’s Going On and Let’s Get it On albums.
Which makes all this more bitter than sweet. “If This World Were Mine” – as interpreted by Gaye/Terrell and especially the classic remake by Vandross/Lynn – is considered one of the greatest love songs ever written. Surely, it was the song’s endearing message of wanting to give everything to the person you love that set the vibe Kendrick and SZA were capturing in what has since become the biggest rap ballad in pop music history. “Luther” spent 13 weeks at No. 1 on the Hot 100 – more than any other song in 2025 (and eclipsing Diddy’s 11-week No. 1 rap ballad “I’ll Be Missing You” in 1997).
But perhaps the biggest irony to this potential Grammy outcome is that, before 2014’s rule change allowing songs with samples to be nominated, “Luther” would not have been eligible for Song of the Year.
The Recording Academy’s Logic?
Still, the reasoning for the exclusion of composers of original sample source material isn’t clear, but it’s possible that The Academy determined it inappropriate to reward composers of sampled material in a creative context for which their work wasn’t originally intended, or maybe it’s even simpler: with the increase in sampling over the decades, there could be too many names to fit on a trophy (or future names would have to be added if it was determined through litigation that a winning song had sampled another tune without permission).
Whatever the reason, if “Luther” does win, maybe the executors of Gaye’s estate will apply for that coveted Winners Certificate.
It should at least be framable.
DJRob
DJRob (he/him) is a freelance music blogger from the East Coast who covers R&B, hip-hop, disco, pop, rock and country genres – plus lots of music news and current stuff! You can follow him on Bluesky at @djrobblog.bsky.social, X (formerly Twitter) at @djrobblog, on Facebook or on Meta’s Threads.
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