Don Toliver Qualifies For Best New Artist Grammy After Five Top 10 Albums

Don Toliver has made the 2027 Grammys’ Best New Artist ballot after five straight top-10 albums dating back to 2020.

The Houston rapper and singer is among 331 acts on the category’s entry list, Billboard reported. Voting opened Monday, giving him a shot at one of eight nominations when Billboard announces the field on November 16.

His inclusion follows a new career high. Octane became his first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 earlier this year, years after his guest turn on Travis Scott’s “Can’t Say” helped bring him to a wider audience.

The Grammy category leaves room for that kind of long build. Its rules place no cap on how many records an artist can have released. Instead, a screening panel weighs whether their work made a major cultural and community impact during the eligibility year, or whether they had already reached that point before it.

That judgment matters more than whether fans have known an artist’s name for years. A long catalog alone doesn’t settle the question.

The academy also raised the entry limit from three to four this year. Ken Carson made the list after three previous attempts, and the revised rule gave him another chance.

Toliver described his own progress in an April cover interview, saying experience had made him more sure of himself onstage and in the studio. He said he had lacked that confidence early in his career, even when he felt the music sounded good.

By the time Octane topped the chart, his outlook had changed.

“When I saw it go No. 1, I was happy, bro. But it kind of felt inevitable,” Toliver said.

He said he had spent weeks recording in Miami before moving to a camp in Monterey, where the album’s direction became clearer. The sessions helped turn his early ideas into the finished project that brought him his first chart-topping album.

The entry list also includes North West, Yung Miami, Yeat, Key Glock, Monaleo, Rod Wave, Bossman Dlow and October London. Ravyn Lenae and Mariah the Scientist are absent from the list.

Recording Academy voters have until October 22 to choose nominees. The winners will be announced February 7, 2027, at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles.