LOS ANGELES — Luminaries of the music business gather to hand out the annual Grammy awards on Sunday at a red-carpet ceremony that may culminate with another record for Taylor Swift. The 34-year-old pop superstar in the middle of the world’s highest-grossing tour is competing for an unprecedented fourth album of the year trophy with “Midnights.” No other artist in the 66-year Grammys history has claimed the coveted honor four times. Music legends Frank Sinatra, Paul Simon and Stevie Wonder won three each. The awards will be broadcast live on CBS and streamed on Paramount+ PARA.O starting at 5 p.m. PT (0100 GMT). Comedian Trevor Noah returns for a fourth stint to host the ceremony at Crypto.com Arena in downtown Los Angeles. Heavy rain is forecast to hit southern California on Sunday. Grammy organizers said the pre-ceremony red carpet would be held under tents to protect nominees from the weather. Swift is not a lock for the album award. Industry pundits said it could go to “SOS” from R&B artist SZA, who would be the first Black woman since Lauryn Hill 25 years ago to win the category as a lead artist. SZA, singer of dark ballad “Kill Bill,” leads all …

LOS ANGELES — When the biggest names in music gather Sunday for the industry’s top honors at the Grammy Awards, they will hand out a new trophy for best African music performance. The prize reflects the growing popularity of Afrobeats, and other music from the continent, which is gaining a global audience with help from social media platforms such as short-form video app TikTok. Afrobeats originated in West Africa, primarily Ghana and Nigeria, though the term is often used as a catch-all for various music styles coming from Africa. It features percussion rhythms mixed with various genres from rap to jazz, R&B and others. Modern Afrobeats “has a feel-good groove to it,” said Heran Mamo, R&B and hip-hop reporter at Billboard magazine, which created a U.S. Afrobeats chart in 2022. “It’s bound to reach a wider audience because it already contains a little bit of everything for everyone.” On Spotify, Afrobeats music was streamed 13.5 billion times in 2022, up from 2 billion in 2017. In another milestone, Nigerian singer Burna Boy became the first African artist to sell out a U.S. stadium when he played New York’s Citi Field last summer. Musicians in the running for the new Grammy on …

Hong Kong  — Frustrated Hong Kong residents say they have been unable to watch the online TV series Expats, starring Hollywood star Nicole Kidman, which was launched globally on Amazon Prime Video late last week and focuses on the former British colony. The six-part show, directed by Chinese-born American filmmaker Lulu Wang, is based on a novel by Korean American author Janice Y. K. Lee. The plot revolves around the lives of three women in Hong Kong in 2014, and the scenes include numerous Hong Kong elements. In addition to settings in familiar tourist sites such as Victoria Harbor, it reproduces scenes of the 2014 Hong Kong protests, also known as the Umbrella Movement, when protesters took to the streets holding umbrellas, demanding the right to choose the city’s chief executive. It is still unclear whether the decision to block the program in Hong Kong was a business decision or whether it was due to interference from authorities there. Analysts suspect that local Amazon Prime users are unable to watch the program because of those reproduced scenes of the 2014 protests. Some also worry it may be another sign of Beijing’s broader crackdown on the arts. A Hong Kong government spokesperson …

MADRID — A poster in the southern Spanish city of Seville that depicts a young, handsome Jesus wearing only a loincloth has unleashed a storm on social media, with some calling it an affront to the figure of Christ and others posting lewd remarks and memes poking fun at the image. The poster by internationally recognized Seville artist Salustiano García Cruz shows a fresh-faced Jesus without a crown of thorns, no suffering face and minuscule wounds on the hands and ribcage. It was commissioned and approved by the General Council of Brotherhoods, which organizes the renowned and immensely popular Holy Week processions ahead of Easter in Seville. As soon as it was unveiled last week criticism of it went viral on social media and a debate erupted over how a resurrected Christ should be depicted. Many called it a disgrace, inappropriate, too pretty, modernist and out of line with Seville’s Easter tradition. Spain is predominantly Catholic and church traditions such as marriage, baptisms and religious parades are immensely popular both among believers and nonbelievers. A campaign on Change.org to have the poster of Jesus withdrawn was signed by some 14,000 people from around the country. The artist, García, defended the work …

NEW YORK — Carl Weathers, a former NFL linebacker who became a Hollywood action movie and comedy star, playing nemesis-turned-ally Apollo Creed in the “Rocky” movies, facing off against Arnold Schwarzenegger in “Predator” and teaching golf in “Happy Gilmore,” has died. He was 76. Matt Luber, his manager, said Weathers died Thursday. His family issued a statement saying he died “peacefully in his sleep.” Weathers was comfortable flexing his muscles on the big screen in “Action Jackson” as well as joking around on the small screen in such shows as “Arrested Development.” He was perhaps most closely associated with Creed, who made his first appearance as the cocky, undisputed heavyweight world champion in 1976’s “Rocky,” starring Sylvester Stallone. “It puts you on the map and makes your career, so to speak. But that’s a one-off, so you’ve got to follow it up with something. Fortunately, those movies kept coming, and Apollo Creed became more and more in people’s consciousness and welcome in their lives, and it was just the right guy at the right time,” he told The Daily Beast in 2017. Most recently, Weathers appeared in all three seasons of the Disney+ hit “The Mandalorian,” for which he earned an …

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Bangkok — A dissident Russian-Belarusian rock band held in Thailand on immigration charges have left the kingdom to fly to Israel, according to a post Thursday on the group’s official Facebook page. Bi-2 have criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin and the war in Ukraine, and their arrest sparked fears they would be deported to Russia where they would face persecution. Thailand’s National Security Council, chaired by Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, took charge of the case on Wednesday, and early Thursday the band’s Facebook page confirmed they had left the country. “All musicians of the Bi-2 group have safely left Thailand and are heading to Tel Aviv,” read the post. Several members of the band have dual nationalities, including Israeli and Australian. On Wednesday, the band said singer Egor Bortnik, known by his stage name Lyova, had already left Thailand to fly to Israel. The band were held last week after they played a gig on Phuket, a southern island popular with Russian holidaymakers. Thai officials said they were arrested for performing without the correct work permits and transferred to an immigration detention center in Bangkok. The organizers of the band’s Thailand concerts — which also included a show in the raucous …