NEW YORK -- For years, the Grammy Awards have been criticized over a lack of diversity — artists of color and women left out of top prizes; rap and contemporary R&B stars ignored — a reflection of the Recording Academy's electorate.An evolving voting body, 66% of whom have joined in the last five years, is working to remedy that.At last year's awards, women dominated the major categories; every televised competitive Grammy went to at least one woman.
It stems from a commitment the Recording Academy made five years ago: In 2019, the Academy announced it would add 2,500 women to its voting body by 2025.Under the Grammys' new membership model, the Recording Academy has surpassed that figure ahead of the deadline: More than 3,000 female voting members have been added, it announced Thursday.“It’s definitely something that we’re all very proud of,” Harvey Mason jr., academy president and CEO, told The Associated Press.
“It tells me that we were severely underrepresented in that area.”Reform at the Record Academy dates back to the creation of a task force focused on inclusion and diversity after a previous CEO, Neil Portnow, made comments belittling women at the height of the #MeToo movement.Since 2019, approximately 8,700 new members have been added to the voting body.In total, there are now more than 16,000 members and more than 13,000 of them are voting members, up from about 14,000 in 2023 (11,000 of which were voting members).
In that time, the academy has increased its number of members who identify as people of color by 63%.“It's not an all-new voting body,” Mason assures.“We’re very specific and intentional in who we asked to be a part of our academy by listening and learning from different genres and different groups that felt like they were being overlooked, or they weren’t being heard.”Mason says that in the last five years, the Recording Academy has “requalified 100% of our members, which is a huge step.” There are voters...