How the GRAMMY Awards are Going to Change in 2022

Everyone’s at least heard of the discussion about under-representation of minorities in the US media awards space. The people who have held that gilded gramophone trophy award at the GRAMMYs don’t exactly represent today’s musical landscape. They don’t at the Academy Awards, or any others, either. And while many awards organizations have talked about doing something about it, the GRAMMYs actually are.

This month, The Recording Academy announced it is making big changes for 2022’s selection and awards process. One big change is The Academy now uses an Inclusion Rider, which means every effort is made to contract people from backgrounds that are underrepresented, because the voting body should be as diverse as America itself. There are also several big changes to the selection process, including:

No more review committees: Now voting for winners will truly be a peer-to-peer voting process not dominated by the Hollywood music elite, which tend to be whiter than not.
Limits on category voting: People in The Academy will now only vote in categories they are experienced and knowledgeable in.
Most exciting is the addition of two new categories: Best Global Music Performance and Best Música Urbana Album.

The Recording Academy hopes these changes come together to create a slate of nominees and winners that represent what Americans are really listening to. BTS, Dua Lipa, Lil Nas X – these are all artists that are hugely popular with the under 40 demographics, and now they should be (closer to) being represented as such.