Best African Music Performance, Best Alternative Jazz Album & Best Pop Dance Recording.
Two current categories, Songwriter Of The Year, Non-Classical, and Producer Of The Year, Non-Classical, will also be transferred to the General Field.
Dance pop, alternative jazz, and African music have all long been nominees for Grammy Awards. They are now deservingly receiving their own categories.
Best African Music Performance, Best Alternative Jazz Album, and Best Pop Dance Recording are the three new categories added by the Recording Academy. The following new categories, which are officially known as the 66th GRAMMY Awards, will be debuted at the 2024 GRAMMYs.
The current Producer Of The Year, Non-Classical and Songwriter Of The Year, Non-Classical Categories will also be relocated to the General Field; this substantial adjustment will enable all GRAMMY voters to cast their votes in these crucial, non-genre-specific Categories.
At the Recording Academy’s most recent semi-annual Board of Trustees meeting, which took place in May 2023, these Category additions and revisions were voted on and approved.
The Recording Academy is pleased to announce these most recent modifications to our Awards process, Category. The Recording Academy’s CEO, Harvey Mason Jr., stated that these revisions “reflect our commitment to actively listen and respond to the feedback from our music community, accurately represent a diverse range of relevant musical genres, and stay aligned with the ever-evolving musical landscape.
By adding these three new categories, Mason explained, “we are able to recognize and appreciate a wider variety of artists. And by moving the Producer of the Year and Songwriter of the Year categories to the General Field, we ensure that all of our voters can participate in recognizing excellence in these fields. The creators and recordings in these categories will be honored and celebrated, and a larger variety of music will be made available to music enthusiasts all around the world.
The three brand-new GRAMMY Award Categories are broken down as follows:
BEST AFRICAN MUSIC PERFORMANCE
a category for tracks and singles that honors compositions that make use of distinctive regional expressions from all over the African continent. The 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 genres are among those featured in the Category, which highlights regional melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic musical traditions.
BEST POP DANCE RECORDING
Recognizes songs and singles with fast-paced, danceable music that is organized in a pop style. With an emphasis on the vocal delivery, melody, and hooks, eligible Pop Dance recordings also have considerable electronic-based instruments and strong rhythmic beats. Only the Best Remixed Recording Category is open to entries for dance remixes; Best Pop Dance Recording entries are not permitted.
BEST ALTERNATIVE JAZZ ALBUM
This category honors outstanding artistic achievement in alternative jazz recordings by solo artists, duos, groups, and ensembles, whether they include vocals or not. Alternative jazz is a genre-fusing, boundary-pushing hybrid that combines jazz with other genres like R&B, Hip-Hop, Classical, Contemporary Improvisation, Experimental, Pop, Rap, Electronic/Dance music, and/or Spoken Word. Jazz is known for its improvisation, interaction, harmony, rhythm, arrangements, composition, and style. It might also use the modern production methods and musical instruments used in other genres.
All year long, the Recording Academy accepts submissions from the music industry. The Academy Voting Members’ Awards & Nominations Committee, which is made up of members from a variety of genres and backgrounds, meets once a year to consider ideas for updating the Awards categories, procedures, and eligibility requirements.
These significant advancements, which will make their debut at the 2024 GRAMMYs, excite the Recording Academy. For more details about Music’s Biggest Night, keep checking back here!
