The Recording Academy, the organization in charge of the Annual Grammys announced new categories on Tuesday June 13, 2023.
As part of its commitment to include more music from around the world the Academy added three new categories. Among them are ‘Best Pop Dance Recording’, ‘Best Alternative Jazz Album’ and ‘ Best African Music Performance’.
In a statement the Academy said, “Our goal at the Recording Academy is to recognize and honor the very best in music from across the globe. Every year, we strive to accurately represent and celebrate the various cultures, influences and genres that shape our world and provide the soundtrack to our lives.”
“Today, we’re proud to announce a new category for the 66th GRAMMY Awards – Best African Music Performance,” the statement continued. The criteria for this category is for tracks and single recordings that utilize unique local expressions from across the African continent. Highlighting regional melodic, harmonic and rhythmic musical traditions, the Category includes but is not limited to the Afrobeat, Afro-fusion, Afro Pop, Afrobeats, Alte, Amapiano, Bongo Flava, Genge, Kizomba, Chimurenga, High Life, Fuji, Kwassa, Ndombolo, Mapouka, Ghanaian Drill, Afro-House, South African Hip-Hop, and Ethio Jazz genres.
Dancehall Grammy
No announcement was made for a new dancehall category although in October Grammy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. told WMV that he would like to see more reggae and dancehall music included in the awards as currently there is only one “Best Reggae Album” category that serves for Ska, reggae and dancehall recordings.
Harvey says under his leadership he plans to make the organization more global which will include music released outside of the US in the future.
“There is just a lot of effort and attention paid to making sure that we are pulling back the curtain and looking under every rock, are there things we can do better, how can we iterate, innovate, and be of service, how can we be the best organization we can be,” he professes on behalf of The Academy.
Under Mason’s regime all credited contributors for Album Of The Year are eligible for a nomination. Where as before, persons would need to contribute more than 33.3% to the project to be eligible. This helped Jamaican artists Shenseea and Buju Banton who has songs on Ye’s (Kanye) Donda album score their first Album Of The Year nomination in 2021.
Freddy McGregor, whose Anything For You Album lost to Lee Scratch Perry’s Jamaican E.T at the 45th Annual Grammy Awards, expressed that those who select the Best Reggae Grammy are biased and have been out of touch with what’s going on in the genre. The Jamaica Gleaner reported Freddie as saying in 2016 that the “reggae arm” of the Grammys is “an embarrassment of indescribable magnitude to reggae music”.
The Marley Family has won the most “Best Reggae Album” Grammy awards with Ziggy Marley winning seven trophies, —he did it 1989, 1990, 1998, 2007, 2014, 2015, and 2017. Sean Paul’s 2004 ‘Dutty Rock’ album is the most commercially successful Grammy winning reggae album, and he claims that his ‘Live N Livin’ album was snubbed at the 64th Annual Grammy Awards in favor of Virginia based reggae band SOJA’s Beauty In The Silence.
The Grammy Award for Best Reggae Album is presented at a pre-show award ceremony for a body of work deemed worthy as elected by registered voters and it could be a ska, reggae or a dancehall album.
Harvey Mason Jr. told WMV that the key to a better Grammys is more integration and diversity which he admits is an area the Academy could improve upon as far as reggae is concerned.
“We haven’t done a good enough job to go into genres and bringing people in, so to me I would like to see more reggae-dancehall music makers and creators being a part of our organization, that would have a direct impact and co-relate exactly to what nominations were made and who would ultimately win,” he explained.
The latest additions to the Grammy come as Harvey says he plans to facilitate greater dialogue among the reggae stakeholders with direct and indirect engagement.
“The Academy needs to ensure that there are people from each genre involved in membership, we need to ensure we are talking to the dancehall and reggae community, we need to ensure we are inviting them to be a part of our community ,” he continued on the point.
Over the years there has been reports in Jamaican media from US based Grammy voting members, that the reggae category has been under threat and could be removed from the awards, and that it makes no sense to even consider asking The Academy to include a separate Dancehall category at the Grammys. I asked him about the truth of those assertions and Harvey says that is far from the truth and indeed reggae has had many good submissions over the years.
“No, we’ve had really good submissions in the reggae category, I think over the last 5 years we’ve had almost 700 submissions. Last year we had I believe 70 or 75, so it’s down a little bit this year, for the most part we’ve had really good numbers in that category and we don’t arbitrarily decide which categories to implement or to remove, its all based on submissions and if you get good submissions in the category there will be no purpose for us to remove it,” Harvey confirmed.
As for whether there will ever be a dancehall category, Harvey says,
“We have worked really hard over the last two years to include more music not less…we want more people from more genres, from more regions and make sure we are honoring them properly. It’s possible only because anything is possible.” He added that the way to do it is to propose it properly to the Recording Academy through a voting process.
