Music's finest--and loudest--pay their respects and celebrate their peers

The 54th Grammy Awards kicked off last Sunday night in L.A., with a host of great performances that spanned from legends like Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, the Beach Boys and Bruce Springsteen to new generation singers like Katy Perry, Chris Brown and Alicia Keys. And though this year showcased the best performances in years, the mood of the star-studded event was definitively somber, due to the untimely death of music icon Whitney Houston, who was found dead in her Beverly Hilton Hotel room just the night before.

Check out the highs and lows of the awards show.

Sean “Diddy” Combs is a force of nature. Since the early ’90s, he’s chanted “I won’t stop” and he, umm…hasn’t. Now, he’s back this month with his sixth studio album, the much-hyped Last Train to Paris, which he recorded with his group Dirty Money (with singer/songwriters Kaleena Harper and ex-Danity Kane member Dawn Richards).

“I am not the typical new artist,” declares Nicki Minaj, hip-hop’s newest feminine force. With her popular song “Your Love,” she became the first female artist to top Billboard’s Rap Songs Chart in almost a decade. However, in her eyes, her debut album Pink Friday is not her first. “People have seen me for the last three years. I feel like [it’s] my third album.”