Dave Chappelle Wins His 5th Best Comedy Album Grammy For ‘What’s in a Name?’ – Second Win In Two Years

(Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

Comic and actor Dave Chappelle won Best Comedy Album for a second year in a row and his fifth overall win in the category, at the 2024 Grammy Awards on Sunday.

Chappelle’s “What’s in a Name” Netflix special, a 40-minute portion of a speech he gave at his high school alma mater the Duke Ellington School of the Arts, featured a defense of the album for which he won the 2023 Best Comedy Grammy, “The Closer.”

Other nominees in the category were Wanda Sykes for “I’m an Entertainer”, Sarah Silverman for “Someone You Love, Trevor Noah for “I Wish You Would”, and Chris Rock for “Selective Outrage.”

Chappelle’s “The Closer” generated controversy that included a Netflix employee walk-out, although the streaming giant stood firmly behind Chappelle as an artist exercising free speech.

In his speech at Duke Ellington, Chappelle also defended that prior special on the grounds of artistic freedom and free speech.

“The more you say I can’t say something, the more urgent it is for me to say it,” he said. “It has nothing to do with what you are saying I can’t say. It has everything to do with my freedom of artistic expression.”