Kendrick Lamar won an early Emmy Award on Sunday night — before next weekend’s primetime ceremony — at the 2025 Creative Arts Emmys.
The Grammy-winning rapper beat the competition in the Outstanding Music Direction category for his Apple Music Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show. He shares the award with music director Tony Russell.
Back in February, the Compton native wowed fans (and left some viewers perplexed), when he performed a thought-provoking 13-minute set with Samuel L. Jackson and SZA at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans.
The track list included Kendrick’s megahit “Not Like Us,” along with “squabble up,” “HUMBLE.,” and “tv off.”
Kendrick did not attend the Creative Arts Emmys to pick up his award.
Congratulations to Kendrick Lamar and Tony Russell on winning an Emmy for “Outstanding Music Direction” for the Apple Music Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show Starring Kendrick Lamar! pic.twitter.com/l6Ye1PNZaf
— Roc Nation (@RocNation) September 8, 2025
Other winners included former President Barack Obama, who won the Outstanding Narrator Emmy for Netflix’s Our Oceans documentary series, specifically for the “Indian Ocean” episode. The former president did not attend the ceremony.
Our Oceans is a five-part series on life forms that populate the oceans and how they are affected by choices we make on land. The series debuted in November 2024, with each episode focusing on one of the planet’s five oceans — Pacific, Indian, Atlantic, Arctic, and Southern (Antarctic).
This marked Obama’s third Emmy since he and former first lady Michelle Obama launched their Higher Ground Productions in 2018.
Obama’s previous Emmys were in 2022 for narrating the Netflix docuseries Our Great National Parks, and in 2023 for narrating Working: What We Do All Day, for the streaming service.
Another big winner this weekend, NBC’s SNL50: The Anniversary Special picked up multiple awards, including Sound Mixing for a Nonfiction Program; Writing for a Variety Special; and Picture Editing for Variety Programming.
Beyoncé won her first Emmy, earning the trophy for Outstanding Costumes for Variety, Nonfiction or Reality Programming (Juried), for her Beyoncé Bowl on Netflix.
The award was actually announced on Aug. 12, when the Television Academy revealed the winners in its juried categories for animation, costume, emerging media programming, and motion design.
The Creative Arts Emmys took place Sept. 6 and Sept. 7 at the Peacock Theater in downtown Los Angeles.
Each year the majority of Primetime Emmy winners are announced at the two-night event on the weekend before the televised ceremony.
Highlights from the Creative Arts Emmy Awards will air on Sept. 13 at 8 p.m. on FXX.
The 77th Primetime Emmy Awards air live on CBS from the Peacock Theater on Sunday, Sept. 14 at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT. The show streams on Paramount+. Details on the nominations can be found here.
Discover more from Urban Hollywood 411
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
