Tennessee State University’s marching band, the TSU Aristocrat of Bands (AOB) is now officially a Grammy award-winning band.
On Sunday, AOB took home the Grammy for Best Roots Gospel Album for their album “The Urban Hymnal.” The band made history as the first college marching band to receive a nomination in this category, and the first to win a Grammy.
In addition, AOB also won the Best Spoken Word Poetry Album category for “The Poet Who Sat By the Door”, which was a collaboration with spoken word artist J. Ivy.
“Hymnal” was co-produced by songwriter and producer Dallas Austin, Sir the Baptist, and TSU professor Larry Jenkins.
Jenkins thanked his students in his speech, saying, “Your hard work and dedication created the pen that allowed you to write your own page in the history books. We all know we made history, but this is also February. We also made Black history.”
The full “Aristocrat of Bands” wasn’t able to accept their win in person, but the university held an official watch party on campus Sunday afternoon. TSU took to Twitter to share the student’s reaction to the big win, where they can be heard chanting “AOB! AOB!” in excitement.
