The 66th Grammy Awards will mark CEO Harvey Mason Jr.’s fourth at the helm since he took over following chief executive Deborah Dugan’s abrupt firing just weeks before the 2020 ceremonies. It’s been a time of change, as Mason and the organization have focused on diversifying their ranks and better representing women and marginalized groups.
The results so far suggest a work in progress. The academy has touted new, diverse membership classes each year, and is now nearly 80 percent of the way to its goal of adding 2,500 women to its rolls by 2025, Mason tells Rolling Stone. (Those figures reflect the Academy’s membership as of September 2022. The Recording Academy is expected to provide an update on its membership data this month.)
But whether it was the Weeknd’s 2021 snub — and his ensuing boycott of the organization — or Beyoncé once again losing out in the Big Four categories last year, the nominations and wins have continued to feed criticism that however much they change, the Grammys remain out of step.
As the academy looks ahead to February’s show, Rolling Stone caught up with Mason to weigh in about the three new Grammy categories, the massive number of awards the academy bestows, and diversifying the voter base.
We’ve seen some major changes to the awards show in the past couple of years as the pandemic required the Grammys to experiment with the presentation. What should we expect for next year’s show?
The pandemic did cause some adjustments. But also, the new producers of the show have made a big difference. And the new culture at the academy is starting to change the way we look at things, the show being one of them. We’re back at Crypto [the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles] this year, which is always good. We’ve been to Vegas, we’ve had the Covid audience, we’re looking forward to having a full audience again. We’re excited about our new categories, the global nature of what we’re doing around those categories and diversity there, which is really, really important.
You brought up the new categories: Best African Music Performance, Best Alternative Jazz Album, and Best Pop Dance Record. There are nearly 100 categories now. Why were these additions needed?
We want to make sure we’re honoring music and music people accurately and fairly. As much as we don’t want to have thousands of awards, because it does dilute the unique nature of it, if there’s a community of music people that are feeling there’s not a place for them, then it’s our job to make sure we fix that.
Some critics question whether these new categories could placate artists from lesser-represented groups if they aren’t being recognized in the higher-profile categories.
These awards do not exclude them from being considered in another category. What I’d like to see is music being honored and where it best fits. This award is not set up to placate anyone, it’s set up to honor and celebrate more people rather than less.
I trust our voters. I don’t believe people are just randomly voting. I’m not sure that’s how it has always been, but we have a respectable, relevant voting body that is going to listen to the music and determine what was the best in that particular category.
The academy has been very public for years about its efforts to diversify its membership. Walk me through the voter base now and how you’ve looked to change it.
We made a massive commitment to rethink how we constituted our membership and how we brought people in as members. Rather than waiting for people to ask to join, we’ve made a conscious effort to reach into different genres of music to say we need more of X or Y. We also wanted to increase our Black membership. Compared to the industry, we’re fairly underrepresented in the Black music genres. I’m excited about this next class, and as we start getting the data in, we’ll be able to have an update on what our percentages look like. But they’re absolutely trending in a positive way. The other thing we’ve done was we requalified all of our members over the last three to four years, so that everyone has to have had a recent credit that will justify them being voting members. We wanted to reestablish that this group of 11,000 to 12,000 voters were actually all professional peers within the music industry.
Regardless of results, year after year, the focus seems to be on what still hasn’t changed. Last year, the big discussion among viewers revolved around Beyoncé and Bad Bunny losing out for Album of the Year. Beyoncé became the most-awarded artist in the history of the Grammys, but it was her losing out in the Big Four categories that drove the narrative. Do you think that’s a fair criticism?
It’s always tough because it’s a subjective award. But I take all criticisms very, very seriously, and I look into how we can be better as an academy — we all do. So when somebody’s upset, whether
it’s an artist or a fan base, we take it seriously. There’ve been giant steps forward, and we’re going to continue to evolve and grow. We don’t like it when anybody feels snubbed, although it’s inevitable.
But surely it doesn’t help your diversity efforts if the very groups you’re looking to include feel they aren’t being well- or fairly represented in the results themselves.
We could look at it two ways: If somebody’s feeling like the voting went the wrong way, they can turn their backs or they can say, “I’m going to get more involved and make sure our community’s voice is heard.” In the past, where someone felt something else should’ve won, I’ve asked, “Did you vote?” And they’d say they weren’t a member. We’ve got to get you to be a member because I need your vote. The academy needs the votes of all the different people in all the different genres. We can’t leave the voting to someone else. We have to be voters ourselves.
This story is part of Rolling Stone’s fourth annual Grammy Preview issue, released ahead of the start of first-round voting on Oct. 13th. We featured SZA on the cover, spoke to some of the year’s biggest artists about the albums and singles that could earn them a statue come February, made our best predictions for the nominees in the top categories, and more, providing a full guide to what to watch for in the lead-up to the 2024 awards.