On the heels of the Grammys September 30 release deadline, CEO of the Recording Academy, organizers of the annual Grammy Awards Harvey Mason Jr. took some time to explain the process of adding categories to the ceremony while he was visiting Ghana recently.
He was speaking to members of the press at the Global Citizens Festival in Ghana on Saturday (Sept. 24) and during the interview, he revealed there are clear steps in applying and selecting categories to be included in the Grammy Awards.
He said that members of The Recording Academy will have to submit a proposal and then voters decide if the category should be included.
“I don’t decide categories. The categories are decided by proposals submitted by members. So the members can say, ‘Harvey, I want a Afrobeats category,’ they write a proposal, it comes into the academy, it gets voted on then we’ll have it. That process has started now. I think the listening session last week was very important. It was very valuable and a step towards that path,” Mason stated.
The listening session Mason mentioned was a call to action by interest of the Afrobeats’ icommunity who are proposing the inclusion of Afrobeats in the awards show.
Grammy-nominated producer Cristy Barber last year said it is unlikely dancehall will ever get its own Grammy Award category, separate from the Best Reggae Album category.
Barber who worked with Super cat in the early 1990s stated that the requests for a redefinition of the two genres and for them to be given separate categories at the Grammys have been made over and over for many years, but has never been considered by the Academy.
“In the past people always asked for another category for us within our field. In the 90s, when I got involved with the Recording Academy, and in 2003 when I started this campaign, I put petitions in, and other people put petitions into the academy to try to get another category,” she explained.“
“Everybody wanted to do a reggae category, a dancehall category. Unfortunately, it never happened and I don’t actually ever see it happening for the simple fact that the Recording Academy, It’s a very small staff of people and the Academy tends to take away fields, not put more fields in. Because the more fields you put in the more categories involved, the more work that has to be done. So, you tend to see things get condensed, some names get changed. It is very difficult for a field to get another category,” Barber said at the time.
The Nashville Tennessee native’s statements about the Grammys leaning towards a cutting categories as she addressed Jamaicans at a music forum, run antithetical to The Academy CEO Harvey Mason’s sentiments in Ghana where he said the Academy is always looking to stay relevant by including new categories.
He explained that the power is in the hands of the voting members.
“Very similar to the way you win a Grammy, that’s how categories are established. I have no control over the categories, the membership decides what the categories are,” he said.
“If you are a member you can submit a proposal,” he stated while addressing the mostly African media.
Following years of outcry by dancehall artists, CEO of Grammy Award Harvey Mason Jr. says it’s the members who decide if there should be a new category. pic.twitter.com/mJWJj1LfMG
— WMV (@worldmusicviews) September 27, 2022
The Grammys have included a Best Reggae Recording category since 1985, then the name was changed to Best Reggae Album in 1992 when Shabba Ranks was the first dancehall act to win the trophy for the album As Raw As Ever.
Since then 6 other dancehall albums have won music’s most prestigious award with Shabba winning again in 1993 for X-Tra Naked. Other dancehall heavy albums to have won include Shaggy’s Boombastic(1996), Beenie Man’s Art and Life(2001), Damian Marley’s Half Way Tree(2002), Sean Paul’s Dutty Rock(2004), and Damian Marley’s Welcome To Jamrock(2006).
Sean Paul’s Dutty Rock dancehall album has been the most successful Grammy winning ‘Best Reggae’ album to date. The sophomore album reached number 2 on the UK Albums Chart, and number 9 on the US Billboard 200 albums chart. The album sold 65,000 in its first week and eventually became the blueprint for making international dancehall hits producing five top 15 hits on the Billboard Hot 100. An achievement no other dancehall act has ever reached
The VP Records/Atlantic release cemented dancehall as a lucrative and commercial genre with two US number-one singles, “Get Busy” and Beyoncé’s “Baby Boy” with Sean Paul. The album also had the 106& Park number 1 single “Gimme the Light”, plus other club bangers: “Like Glue” and “I’m Still in Love with You”, which all charted in the top 6 on the UK Singles Chart.
“Baby Boy” became one of the biggest hits of 2003, spending nine weeks at number one. The album has sold over 2 million copies in the United States.
Watch Harvey Mason’s speech below:
