Recording Academy “Stepping It Up” with Women Raking In Nominations
Ayana Davenport, Staff Writer
The 2019 Grammy nominations are in, and it looks like this year women are finally dominating the major categories. With a more inclusive list of nominees, the Recording Academy has improved their gender diversity after receiving major backlash from the previous year due to out of only 17 awards out of the 86 being handed to women.
In 2018, The Grammys were criticized for not nominating enough women in the major categories, and for only giving out one out of the eight awards during the telecast to women. A report published by the The New York Times last year explained that out of the 899 individuals that were nominated for the last six ceremonies, only 9.3 percent were women, and 90.7 percent of them were men.
In a study led by Stacy L. Smith, an associate professor at the University of Southern California, women’s representation in pop music has dropped as well. In the past six years, only 22.4 percent of songs that landed on the Billboard’s Hot 100 List were by female musicians. In the past few years the gender bias has gotten even worse. In music sales charts this past year, 83 percent of the top songs were created by male musicians, while women only made up 16.8 percent of the share. And when it comes to the amount of women being nominated for a Grammy, they are most likely to appear in The Best New Artist category.
Neil Portnow, CEO/president of the Recording Academy was criticized last January for stating that if women want to be recognized more in the music industry they need to “step it up.” After this statement numerous female musicians, such as P!nk, responded to Portnow’s comment with posting on social media
“Women in music don’t need to ‘step up’ — women have been stepping up since the beginning of time,” P!nk said on Twitter. “When we celebrate and honor the talent and accomplishments of women and how much women step up every year, against all odds, we show the next generation of women and girls and boys and men what it means to be equal, and what it looks like to be fair.”
— P!nk (@Pink) January 29, 2018
However, this year it looks like the Recording Academy “Stepped Up” and finally released a more inclusive list of nominees. Instead of the usual five nomination per category, a surprise was added this year for a nomination of eight artist/s for the following categories : Record of The Year, Best New Artist, and Album of the Year. Of those categories women were nominated 14 times with artist such as Cardi B and H.E.R being nominated more than once. Women took over the Best New Artist category with six out of the eight nominees being women.
However, with The Grammys expanding their nominees list, winning becomes a greater challenge.
“Reflection, re-evaluation and implementation have been the driving forces at the Recording Academy over the past year,” Portnow said in a statement given this past December.
These enhancements were definitely executed this year.
Photo courtesy: Kevin Winter/Getty Images for NARAS
With approximately 13,000 general members, the recording academy will finish its’ voting for the nominees at the end of January. The Grammy’s will be hosted by Alicia Keys this year and will be held Sunday, February 10th.
