Fela Kuti, Whitney Houston, and Paul Simon are among those set to receive Lifetime Achievement Awards at the 2026 Grammys, the Recording Academy announced today. Cher, Carlos Santana, and Chaka Khan will round out the honorees. Bernie Taupin, Eddie Palmieri, and Sylvia Rhone have been named as next year’s Trustees Award winners, and the Technical Grammy will go to John Chowning, who discovered frequency modulation (FM) synthesis in 1967.
The Grammys’s Special Merit Awards Ceremony—where the awards, many posthumous, will be handed out—takes place the day before the main event, on Saturday, January 31, The 2026 Grammy Awards air live from Los Angeles’ Crypto.com Arena on February 1. Last year’s Lifetime Achievement honorees were Prince, the Clash, Frankie Beverly, Roxanne Shanté, Frankie Valli, Dr. Bobby Jones, and Taj Mahal.
Follow along with all of Pitchfork’s coverage of the 2026 Grammy Awards.
