ROBERT SIEGEL, Host:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel.
NPR: voted on by a clique of aging industry insiders. But as NPR's Mandalit del Barco reports, winning one still means plenty to the musicians in the audience.
MANDALIT DEL BARCO: Sunday night, everyone in the Staples Center in Los Angeles will be waiting for these five words:
Unidentified Male: And the Grammy goes to...
DEL BARCO: Excitement usually follows. Winners sometimes kiss their Grammy statues. They thank God or their parents. In the case of many hip-hop artists, winning one or more gives them license to boast.
LUDACRIS: Are y'all telling me all I had to do was cut my hair to win a Best Rap Album? Is that what y'all are telling me, huh?
DEL BARCO: When rapper Ludacris accepted his first Grammy in 2007, he not only tried to settle an old beef, he thanked everyone who helped him reach the top and some who dissed him.
LUDACRIS: Special shout-out to Oprah and special shout-out to Bill O'Reilly. I love you.
DEL BARCO: Los Angeles musicians Ulises Bella and Asdru Sierra say they were sitting way in the back of the audience in 2002 when the band's name, Ozomatli, was pronounced incorrectly by presenter Emilio Estefan.
ULISES BELLA: We jumped up like we had just won the Publishers Clearing House or something.
Mr. ASDRU SIERRA (Musician) Yeah, it was like...
BELLA: I can't believe it, I can't believe it.
SIERRA: My life's gonna change. My life's gonna change. I can buy all the stuff I want now. Yeah, but Grammys doesn't come with a check.
BELLA: Yeah, sure doesn't.
DEL BARCO: Sierra and Bella say winning their first Grammy confirmed to them they were on to something with their blend of hip-hop, salsa, cumbia and other world beats.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "EMBRACE DE CHAOS")
OZOMATLI: (Singing) Am I a patriot? Of what? Of chaos. Every day I watch young studs play blocks. Where? In front of buildings, dealing what they gotta. Currency and game exchange. What else?
DEL BARCO: Before the Grammys, Sierra and Bella say record companies and radio stations didn't quite know how to market the multilingual, multicultural band.
BELLA: To have that kind of validation from people in the industry just felt really good, you know? At the same time, I think part of me was kind of, if we lost, have that kind of punk rock attitude, like, eh, whatever. But in the end, I think the Grammys have opened a lot of doors for us.
DEL BARCO: The Ozomatli guys got more airplay and bigger record deals and began touring around the world as cultural ambassadors for the U.S. State Department. Winning a Grammy can sometimes mean a boost in sales. Ann Donahue is senior editor of Billboard magazine, which bases its charts on sales.
ANN DONAHUE: Last year, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss won Album of the Year for "Raising Sand," and they saw a 715 percent increase in their amount of sales. And that album had done pretty good previously to that. So it's just the exposure that they got in the TV show, and it really paid off.
DEL BARCO: In some cases, a Grammy can provide a career boost for an artist looking to make a comeback. Bob Santelli, who runs the new Grammy Museum, points to Bonnie Raitt. By 1990, she had been dropped by her label and was reportedly battling drug and alcohol abuse.
BOB SANTELLI: At that particular point, she was at the crossroads of her career, and Capitol Records had decided to take a chance on it.
DEL BARCO: Capitol released Raitt's album, "Nick of Time," and it went on to sweep the 1990 Grammys. She won four, including Album of the Year.
SANTELLI: Those Grammys resurrected her career. All of a sudden, everybody loved Bonnie Raitt all over again.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
BONNIE RAITT: (Singing) I fall in love (unintelligible).
DEL BARCO: Even performing at the Grammys can help a musician. In 1999, Ricky Martin was famous in Latin America but almost unknown to gringos up north. That changed when Martin got on stage to shake his hips and sing during that year's ceremony.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CUP OF LIFE")
RICKY MARTIN: (Singing) Do you really want it? Yeah. Do you really want it? Yeah.
DEL BARCO: To a lesser extent, recognition by the Grammys has also helped the dozens of musicians honored each year during the pre-telecast Grammy ceremony. Slack key guitarist and producer Daniel Ho is a four-time Grammy winner in the Hawaiian music category.
DANIEL HO: It's brought Hawaiian music to maybe a world stage. I mean, people know about it now, and the recognition certainly changed a lot of things career-wise. We're doing higher level projects, bigger artists, maybe charging a little more money for a gig.
DEL BARCO: Even within a music scene, a Grammy can provide a kick in the pants. Zydeco musician Terrance Simien thanks the Grammy Foundation for helping his colleagues in New Orleans recover after Hurricane Katrina. Beyond that, Simien says his Grammy win inspired other musicians to keep the musical tradition alive.
TERRANCE SIMIEN: It really energized a lot of young musicians to continue to do what they're doing, you know, continue to follow in the tradition of all the great musicians that came before them.
DEL BARCO: You might think that the novelty would wear off, but there still seems to be a thrill to winning, even for ex-Beatle Ringo Starr.
RINGO STARR: What's great about it, it's always open for next year. We're all in the game again. To get a Grammy is really cool. I love getting Grammys.
DEL BARCO: Ringo Starr is scheduled to be one of the presenters in this year's Grammy Awards ceremony to be held at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Mandalit del Barco, NPR News.