BTS joined Lil Nas X, while Kobe Bryant and Nipsey Hussle tributes united winners and losers at 2020 Grammy Awards

The 2020 Grammy Awards were filled with tributes to Los Angeles icons, celebrating the lives and legacies of NBA legend Kobe Bryant and rapper Nipsey Hussle, who won his first Grammy posthumously on Sunday night (January 26).

The Grammys kicked off with a performance in honour of Bryant, who died just hours before the awards began. And later in the show, Hussle’s collaborators and friends, including DJ Khaled, John Legend, Meek Mill, Kirk Franklin, Roddy Ricch and YG, gave an all-star tribute to the performer who died last year, in March 2019 – and won the trophy for best rap performance for the track Racks in the Middle.

Filmmaker Ava DuVernay introduced the performance, which featured band players, background dancers and Legend wearing traditional Ethiopian and Eritrean clothing in honour of Hussle’s African roots. Mill performed a new song called Letter to Nipsey, while others joined together for Higher – the DJ Khaled single featuring Hussle and Legend – which also won best rap/sung performance.

“Rest in peace Nipsey Hussle. Rest in peace Kobe Bryant,” DJ Khaled said as photos of the entertainers appeared on-screen.

The show – which took place in Los Angeles at the Staples Center, home of Bryant’s long-term NBA team, the LA Lakers – kicked off with a touching, emotional, a cappella performance of It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday by host Alicia Keys and Boyz II Men.

“Here we are together on music’s biggest night celebrating the artists that do it best, but to be honest with you, we are all feeling crazy sadness right now,” Keys said as she entered the stage, adding that “Los Angeles, America and the whole wide world lost a hero”.

She said the audience was “heartbroken in the house that Kobe Bryant built”.