Kendrick and Gaga at top of Grammy nominations

Kendrick Lamar and Lady Gaga will face off for album of the year at the 68th Grammy Awards, a first-time showdown between two megastars of modern music who've separately been nominated four previous times without winning the Recording Academy's most prestigious prize.

- By MIKAEL WOOD

As announced Friday morning by the academy, Lamar leads nominees for next year’s ceremony with nine nods in all, followed by Gaga and the producers Cirkut and Jack Antonoff, each of whom has seven nominations, and Bad Bunny, Sabrina Carpenter and Leon Thomas, each of whom has six. Other top nominees include rappers Doechii, Clipse and Tyler, the Creator as well as pro-

ducers Sounwave and Andrew Watt, rock band Turnstile and recording engineer Serban Ghenea.

The 68th Grammys will take place Feb. 1 at Crypto.com Arena in downtown Los Angeles.

For Lamar, the album of the year nod — for his “GNX,” which came out with about half an hour's notice last November — follows a triumphant showing at the most recent Grammys ceremony, where the Compton-born rapper won record of the year and song of the year with “Not Like Us,” the festive Drake diss he went on to perform at the Super Bowl halftime show. His album nomination makes him the first solo artist in Grammys history to compete for that prize with five consecutive studio albums.

Lamar is nominated for the record and song prizes again with “Luther,” his and SZA's tender duet that samples Luther Vandross and Cheryl Lynn's “If This World Were Mine.”

Gaga’s album of the year nod recognizes “Mayhem,” a widely praised return to her signature dance-pop sound that led to an even more widely praised tour that launched at Coachella in April. The singer will also go head-to-head with Lamar for record and song with her single “Abracadabra”; her nominations in those categories, neither of which she’s ever won, are her fourth and fifth, respectively.