Mike Schramm

The Recording Academy is hosting a Grammy-viewing party at the Hard Rock Hotel, and plenty of dues-paying members have showed. There's the children's musician from the small town in Indiana, and the singer-songwriter from Milwaukee. The rock-star-T-shirt-and-spikey-wrist guy is chatting it up with the longhaired producer and the older guy in a suit. Rappers in jackets and offset hats are catching pictures with an Academy bigwig, right before said bigwig makes his way back to the bar.

At seven everyone moves into the ballroom, and the real show begins. At the first commercial break, the bigwig takes the stage and says it's going to be a big night for the local chapter, as we've got a lot of "constituents" hoping to hit it big. First among them, local hero Kanye West has ten noms, and people are ready for him to win all of them.

The crowd chats, drinks, watches and waits for Kanye to perform. He's part of a performance with Chicago's Mavis Staples and the Blind Boys of Alabama, and when he comes out on stage to perform "Jesus Walks," the members of the Chicago chapter of the Recording Academy stand up. He leaps and dances and raps his heart out, and the "churchgoers" on the televised stage bow and sing to him like he is the second coming of you-know-who. The setup ends with him in a white suit, rising out of a group of faithful, with huge angelic wings hanging off his back, and both the audience in the ballroom and the television audience go crazy.

Afterwards, Kevin Bacon and Ludacris come out on stage to present Best Rap Album. Ludacris says he wants everybody to "give it up for Mr. Kanye West one more time," and minutes later, when he wins, they do.

(2005-02-15)

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