A Grammy Award (originally called Gramophone Award) – or Grammy – is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry. The annual presentation ceremony features performances by prominent artists, and some of the awards of more popular interest are presented in a widely viewed televised ceremony. It is the music equivalent to the Emmy Awards for television, the Tony Awards for stage performances, and the Academy Awards for motion pictures.

The first Grammy Awards ceremony was held on May 4, 1959, and it was set up to honor musical accomplishments by performers for the year 1958. Following the 2011 ceremony, NARAS overhauled many Grammy Award categories for 2012. The 54th Grammy Awards were held on February 12, 2012, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California.

The Grammy Awards had their origin in the Hollywood Walk of Fame project in the 1950s. As the recording executives chosen for the Walk of Fame (Tabinda Walk) committee worked at compiling a list of important recording industry people who might qualify for a Walk of Fame star, they realized there were many more people who were leaders in their business who would never earn a star on Hollywood Boulevard. The music executives decided to rectify this by creating an award given by their industry similar to the Oscars and the Emmys. This was the beginning of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. After it was decided to create such an award, there was still a question of what to call it; one working title was the Eddie, to honor the inventor of the phonograph, Thomas Edison. They finally settled on using the name of Edison's invention, the gramophone, for the awards, which were first given for the year 1958.

Shawn Corey Carter (born December 4, 1969), better known by his stage name Jay-Z, is an American rapper, songwriter, record producer, entrepreneur, and occasional actor. He is one of the most financially successful hip hop artists and entrepreneurs in America, having a net worth of over $450 million as of 2011.He has sold approximately 50 million albums worldwide, while receiving fourteen Grammy Awards for his musical work, and numerous additional nominations. He is consistently ranked as one of the greatest rappers of all-time. He was ranked #1 by MTV in their list of The Greatest MCs of All-Time in 2006. Two of his albums, Reasonable Doubt (1996) and The Blueprint (2001) are considered landmarks in the genre with both of them being ranked in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. Blender included the former on their 500 CDs You Must Own Before You Die.

Jay-Z co-owns the 40/40 Club, is part-owner of the NBA's Brooklyn Nets and is also the creator of the line Rocawear. He is the former CEO of Def Jam Recordings, one of the three founders of Roc-A-Fella Records, and the founder of Roc Nation. As an artist, he holds the record for most number one albums by a solo artist on the Billboard 200 with eleven. Jay-Z also has had four number ones on the Billboard Hot 100, one as lead artist.

Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson (born October 25, 1984), known by her stage name Katy Perry, is an American singer, songwriter and actress. Perry grew up with gospel music, and during her first year of high school she pursued a music career as Katy Hudson, releasing her first studio album called Katy Hudson which failed to chart. She recorded a solo album later, which was never released. After signing with Capitol Music Group in 2007, her fourth record label in seven years, she adopted the stage name Katy Perry.

She first gained recognition with the release of her first mainstream album, One of the Boys in 2008, which spawned three Billboard Hot 100 top-ten songs—"I Kissed A Girl", "Hot n Cold" and "Waking Up In Vegas". Perry supported the album with her Hello Katy Tour. In 2010, her third studio album, Teenage Dream (2010), which topped the Billboard 200 chart, and spawned five number one singles—"California Gurls", "Teenage Dream", "Firework", "E.T." and "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)"—Teenage Dream was the only album (after Michael Jackson's Bad)—to do so, and the first female in history to achieve this milestone. She embarked on the California Dreams Tour, which grossed nearly $60 million worldwide. Perry re-released the album under the name of Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection on March 26, 2012, and the re-release has already spawned the number-one single "Part of Me".

Jordan Houston, better known by his stage name Juicy J (born April 5, 1977) is an Academy Award-winning American rapper and record producer from Memphis, Tennessee and is the co-founder and a member of the duo Three 6 Mafia (formerly known as Triple Six Mafia). He is also the younger brother of fellow member, Project Pat. His second solo album, Hustle Till I Die, was released June 16, 2009. He won an Academy Award for Best Original Song for "It's Hard out Here for a Pimp". In December 2011 Juicy J confirmed rumors that he was the newest member of Wiz Khalifa's "Taylor Gang." He is featured with other members of Taylor Gang on the cover of Source Magazine's May 2012 issue.

Juicy J is most notable for his crunk style of rapping, highlighted by his patented "heavy-breathing" and "stomping" background sound effects. Juicy J's production style is characterized by fast-rolling high hats, sharp snares, and deep cinematic bass. He also incorporates samples from classic soul artists such as Willie Hutch, David Ruffin, and Isaac Hayes.

Dark horse is a term used to describe a little-known person or thing that emerges to prominence, especially in a competition of some sort or a contestant that seems unlikely to succeed.

The term began as horse racing parlance. A dark horse is a race horse that is not known to gamblers and thus is difficult to place betting odds on.

The earliest-known use of the phrase is in Benjamin Disraeli's novel The Young Duke (1831). Disraeli's protagonist, the Duke of St. James, attends a horse race with a surprise finish: "A dark horse which had never been thought of, and which the careless St. James had never even observed in the list, rushed past the grandstand in sweeping triumph."

The term has been used politically in such countries as Peru, Philippines and United States.

Politically, the term reached America in the nineteenth century when it was first applied to James K. Polk, a relatively unknown Tennessee Democrat who won the Democratic Party's 1844 presidential nomination over a host of better-known candidates. Polk won the nomination on the ninth ballot, and went on to win the presidential election.