NEW YORK (AP) — Post Malone will celebrate his 16 whopping nominations at the 2020 Billboard Music Awards with a performance.
The hitmaker is one of several acts set to perform during Wednesday night’s awards show, which will air live on NBC at 8 p.m. ET from the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. Some of the performances will be live, while others were pre-taped due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Kelly Clarkson is hosting the show, where Malone is up for honors including top artist, top male artist, top rap artist and top streaming songs artist. His 2019 album “Hollywood’s Bleeding” — which featured the hits “Circles,” “Wow” and “Goodbyes” — is up for top Billboard 200 album while “Sunflower,” his collaboration with Swae Lee from the Oscar-winning animation “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” is nominated for top rap song, top collaboration and top streaming song.
Malone’s competition for the show’s biggest prize, top artist, include Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, Khalid and Jonas Brothers.
K-pop all-stars BTS — who currently own the top two positions on the Billboard Hot 100 chart this week with “Dynamite” and the “Savage Love” remix, with Jawsh 685 and Jason Derulo — will also perform. Others set to perform Wednesday include Alicia Keys, Bad Bunny, Sia, Kane Brown, Luke Combs, Doja Cat, En Vogue, Khalid, Brandy, Ty Dolla $ign, Swae Lee, Demi Lovato and SAINt JHN. Country music icon Garth Brooks will be presented the Icon Award from Cher, and rapper-activist Killer Mike will earn the Change Maker Award.
The 2020 Billboard Awards were originally supposed to take place in April but was postponed because of the pandemic. It’s the reason why some of the nominees in the 55 categories may feel dated.
This year’s show reflects the chart period of March 23, 2019, through March 14, 2020, and, for instance, all five nominees for the main song award, top Hot 100 song, were nominated for Grammys earlier this year in January. Eilish’s “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?” — which won the Grammy for album of the year — is up against Malone’s record for top Billboard 200 album, where other nominees include Ariana Grande “Thank U, Next,” released in Oct. 2018, and Swift’s “Lover,” not her recent release “Folklore.”
Some of the nominees were even big contenders at the 2019 MTV Video Music Awards — held more than year ago — including Lil Nas X’s record-breaking hit “Old Town Road” and Lizzo’s anthemic “Truth Hurts.”
Other nominees at the Billboard Awards include Kanye West, who released two gospel albums last year. He is up for nine prizes, including bids for top gospel artist and top Christian artist, while four of the five songs nominated for top gospel song are from West.
Whitney Houston, who died in 2012, picked up a nomination for top dance/electronic song for “Higher Love,” her platinum-selling collaboration with Norwegian DJ-producer Kygo. Houston originally released a cover of Steve Winwood’s “Higher Love” as a Japan-only bonus track on her 1990 album “I’m Your Baby Tonight,” but Kygo’s dance remix of the song became an international hit after it was released last year.
Other deceased nominees include rapper Juice WRLD, who died in December and is currently dominating the charts and streaming services with his first posthumous album “Legends Never Die.” He picked up nominations for top rap artist and top rap album for his 2019 release “Death Race for Love.” And EDM superstar Avicii is nominated for top dance/electronic artist and top dance/electronic album for “Tim,” the album he started working on before he died in 2018 and was later completed by his producers and family.
