Bebe Rexha has talked candidly about her feelings at the time of her 2019 Grammy loss. It appears that this is a loss that she has not forgotten, still. Now that she's nominated once more for the Grammy Awards 2024, it remains to be seen if the singer can go without holding much expectations so she would not be hurt regardless of the outcome.
The singer left the ceremony empty-handed, despite having been nominated for her first Grammy Awards for Best New Artist and Best Country Duo/Group Performance for her song Meant to Be, which she co-wrote with Florida Georgia Line.
"I got really bummed out. I told myself, 'If I do not win for Meant to Be, I really do not think I'll ever win a Grammy for anything else,'" Bebe told People in a recent interview. "Ever since then, what I'm trying to get to is having no expectations."
Since then, the 34-year-old singer has made it onto the Grammy shortlist. Bebe and David Guetta are both nominated for their most recent collaboration, One in a Million, and for Best Dance/Electronic Recording for I'm Good (Blue), which they both did last year.
"When we found out we were nominated for the Grammy, it felt really good because it's our peers who are voting," Bebe continued. "David and I, musically, just have this chemistry that I can't explain. It's just fun working with him because he's so talented, and I feel like I've learned a lot."
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She added, "I really am truly grateful to still be in the mix and still be able to do what I love. I started out as an underdog with a lot of labels not wanting to sign me because, in the beginning, I didn't fit the look. I had to come to this point in my career by using the power of the pen and my writing."
The Grammy Awards for 2024 will be held in Los Angeles on February 4th.
Early in her career, just after scoring her first big hit song, "Take Me Home" with Cash Cash in 2013, the pop singer-songwriter started a long-term collaboration with the 56-year-old EDM superstar. Rexha remembers their first encounter at a multi-artist studio session, saying, "I remember being really nervous." "I got in, and he played me an idea, and he said, 'I have this song that I worked on with Ester Dean, and I'm missing a pre-hook or a hook.' And I was like, 'Say less,'" she explains.
"David walked in 30 minutes later, ['Hey Mama'] was done, and he was going crazy. It was a very surreal moment." Rexha's first vocal collaboration to peak in the top-10 of the Billboard Hot 100 and sell over four million copies in the US was the trap-house collaboration with Nicki Minaj and Afrojack.
However, she views the song's success as "bittersweet," since she wasn't initially asked to appear in the music video or given credit as a featured artist.
"That was really heartbreaking for me because my voice was literally on the song," says Rexha, who felt her former professional team didn't do their best to vouch for her at the time. "I put my foot down at some point, and maybe it was a little too late, because even 'til this day when I perform it, people's eyes open up, and they're like, 'Wait, this is Bebe? What the hell?' And that's the story of my life."
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