Dec 6, 2013 1 min read

Jay Z easily led Grammy Award nominations with nine, but left-of-center hip-hop stars Kendrick Lamar and Macklemore & Ryan Lewis were among a group of young performers who took many of the major nominations.

Macklemore and Lewis’ gay marriage anthem “Same Love” was among song of the year nominees and the Seattle rap crew joined Los Angeles rapper Lamar with seven nominations apiece, including best album and best new artist of the year. Pharrell Williams had four major nominations among his seven and Justin Timberlake also had seven.

But like Jay Z, Timberlake was mostly relegated to the genre categories in a year he was expected to contend for major awards. He and Jay Z teamed up for two nominations apiece, but they only had one major nod between them.