As part of their ongoing commitment to diversity and as a tribute to the genre, the Grammy Awards of the American music business announced on Tuesday that they will present a gramophone to the best African music performance at their next ceremony.
The #RecordingAcademy just announced that three new categories will be added for the 2024 #GRAMMYs: Best African Music Performance, Best Alternative Jazz Album and Best Pop Dance Recording. Here’s why these changes are important. 🎶
🖊️ @otherhouses https://t.co/7k0oLsISWW
— Recording Academy / GRAMMYs (@RecordingAcad) June 13, 2023
The African Music Award will take the form of “A track and singles Category that recognises recordings that utilise unique local expressions from across the African continent,” according to the Grammys website. 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 are just a few examples of the genres that the Category highlights in terms of regional melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic traditions.
CEO Harvey Mason Jr. commented on the new path the organisation is blazing for itself: “The Recording Academy is happy to announce these latest Category adjustments to our Awards process. These adjustments show our dedication to authentically representing a wide variety of pertinent musical genres, staying in step with the constantly changing musical scene, and actively listening to and acting upon comments from our music community. The move aims to further highlight the best performers in the globe and support keeping the academy relevant. African music has magnificently grown over the past few years, and with foreign stakeholders paying more attention to creativity coming out of the continent.
At first look, it appears that the academy is making an effort to reach every part of the continent, casting a rather wide net in an effort to incorporate a continent rich in rhythmic diversity.
The Grammy Awards have long been criticised for failing to adequately reflect the diversity and development of the music business, thus they have worked to increase the variety of award categories and categories themselves. In 2022, the best video game soundtrack category was added.
The Grammy world music categories are frequently dominated by musicians from African nations, such as French-Beninese singer Angélique Kidjo (5 wins, 14 nominations), and Nigerian singer Burna Boy (1 win, 6 nominations).
A Zulu-language single helped a group fronted by South African DJ-producer Zakes Bantwini, a stalwart of the local house music scene, win the best global music performance award during the 65th edition of the festival on February 5 in Los Angeles.
