The Grammys are considering adding an Afrobeats category
When it comes to choosing categories for the Grammy Awards, the Academy has a problem.
The popular categories in the music world — Best New Artist, Best R&B Album, Best Rap Album, Best Country Album, Best Gospel Album — have never been awarded to African-American performers.
The only category ever awarded to an African-American performer was Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group in 2004, when OutKast came out of nowhere to win it. It’s the only category in which a rap duo or group has won the Grammy for the best rap song.
But what about other genres like alternative, blues, roots and blues rock? And even in other non-rap genres, there is a dearth of people of color onstage, on stage or behind the scenes.
In 2015, the Academy said it was considering adding a category devoted to Afrobeats artists — a genre that, for over two decades, had been mostly dominated by black musicians from the South, West and Northeast.
The academy has been struggling for years to figure out how to bring more young artists onto the awards stage — from pop to classical, rock to jazz.
Over the past few years, the Grammy Foundation has held series of meetings to try to figure out the right format, and the response has been mixed. Some board members told the Associated Press that the idea of an Afrobeats category has broad appeal with a global audience, while others have said it would be too expensive.
One of the main reasons this year’s Grammy nominations were so light was because there were no major Afrobeats artists on the ballot.
Other categories that were left on the table were jazz, folk, pop, gospel and folk rock. But the Academy could still have considered adding a new category for Afrobeats, which has seen major growth in recent years and which is now at the center of the pop world.
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