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The Grammy Awards are a kind of trend barometer every year – but it’s not just the nominations that show what sound is currently in. The categories that are added or renamed every year also reflect the development of the music landscape.
Autor:
Florence Baeriswyl & Theresa Beyer
The number of awards is enormous: there are 94 categories at the Grammy Awards this year. Logically, the show is limited to the main categories on Sunday nights. But before the show, secondary categories come into play. There are three new ones this year.
More recognition for African music
One of the new categories is called «Best African Performance». This honors pieces that “use the unique and diverse expressions of the African continent,” as the Recording Academy writes. Everything from Afrobeat to Genge to Ghanaian drill music is thrown in there. Given the Afrobeat boom in recent years, this category is long overdue.
The US’s dominance of the global music market is increasingly being challenged by countries such as South Korea, Nigeria and Puerto Rico. But these countries also produce international stars who are currently not pushed into an exoticized category like “Global Music”.
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The process is simple: The Recording Academy receives suggestions from the music community throughout the year. A committee then decides how the categories need to be updated to reflect the music landscape.
So far there has been repeated criticism that stars like Beyoncé, Rihanna and Co. are spreading too widely in the existing dance and pop categories. Now creates the new category «Best Pop Dance Recording» Place – for example for the Australian Troye Sivan, who is nominated for the first time with his Eurodance song “Rush”.
Space for hybrids
Thanks to new categories, old Grammy hands can also find a better genre home, such as the American musician Meshell Ndegeocello. In her music she combines jazz with funk, soul, reggae and hip-hop.
In 2021 she won the Grammy in the “Best R&B Song” category – this year she is one of the nominees in the new category «Alternative Jazz». This was created precisely for artists like her: those who expand jazz into other genres. And there are more and more such “hybrid” artists.
More and more categories – does that make sense?
Historically, categories have continually become more diverse. At the first awards ceremony in 1959 there were only 28 categories, in 2011 there were a whopping 109. This was a peak – and the Recording Academy put on the brakes and reduced.
The music industry is divided as to whether constant category growth makes sense: the “less is more” faction fears that the value of the awards would be diluted by too many categories. The others think that the Grammys also have to reflect the fact that the music landscape is branching out into more and more genres and forms of expression.
But one thing is clear: the introduction of new categories has more than just symbolic value. They are crucial for the representation of music creators. But should the Grammys aim to broaden musical horizons and take a truly global view? wantthen the categories would have to be completely rethought.
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