Silk Sonic, the dynamic duo of Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak, has won song of the year at the 2022 Grammys for its retro-funk ballad “Leave the Door Open.”
Mars and .Paak, along with co-writers Brandon Anderson, Dernst Emile II and Christopher Brody Brown, beat out Olivia Rodrigo’s breakout smash “Drivers License,” Billie Eilish’s “Happier Than Ever,” Justin Bieber’s “Peaches” and six other contenders. Silk Sonic is also nominated for record of the year.
Song of the year recognizes songwriting.
The victory is the third for Silk Sonic, which made its network television debut with the song at the 2021 awards ceremony. There, wearing matching orange leisure suits and polyester shirts with collars as wide as the 405, Mars and .Paak seduced viewers as if they had time-traveled from 1974. This year, they returned as the show’s opening act with a huge band and a blast of funk.
Separately, both Mars and .Paak have been generously rewarded by the Recording Academy over the last decade. Mars, 36, has received 30 nominations and has now won 14 awards for smashes including “Nothin’ on You,” “Uptown Funk” and “That’s What I Like.” In 2018, Mars went six-for-six for his work on the album “24K Magic.”
Oxnard, California, native .Paak, also 36, has landed 10 nominations and won four other times since 2017, when he earned a best new artist nod — he lost to Chance the Rapper — for work on his album “Malibu.” Silk Sonic’s victory is .Paak’s first major category win.
Last month, Silk Sonic opened a monthlong residency at the Park MGM in Las Vegas, the culmination of an idea first envisioned at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Referring to .Paak by his nickname, Mars told Times pop music critic Mikael Wood in February, “Andy had been performing and I’d been performing, and then it all went away” with the pandemic. Mars added, “It felt like the world was gonna end — like, man, I don’t know if we’re ever gonna play again. So we said, ‘Let’s put together an imaginary show — this set list of doom.’”
Mars raved about the drummer-singer-rapper’s approach to “Leave the Door Open.” “If you really listen to what Andy’s playing in ‘Leave the Door Open,’ that’s not easy,” Mars told The Times. “He’s not just playing the drums — he’s playing the microphones.”
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