Three Additional Categories To Be Added to Grammy Awards 2024
The upcoming 2024 Grammy Awards will have three new categories. The prestigious Recording Academy recently announced that the 66th Annual Grammy Awards will recognize talent for Best African Music Performance, Best Pop Dance Recording, and Best Alternative Jazz Album.
With these new categories, in 2024, the Grammy Awards will now have 102 categories.
This year, there are 91 categories without the eight special awards. These carefully selected eight honors are The Grammy Global Impact Award, Grammy Hall of Fame Award, Technical Grammy Award, Lifetime Achievement Award, The MusiCares Person of the Year Award, Grammy Legend Award, Trustees Award, and the Best Song for Social Change.
Aside from the additional categories, the awards will also see other changes to two existing categories. The Songwriter of the Year, Non-Classical category and the Producer of the Year, Non-classical category will both be moved to the General Field. This means everyone who will vote in the Grammy’s gets to vote in these groups independently.
The current setup only allows those directly working in these areas to vote.
Harvey Mason Jr., the CEO of the Recording Academy, stated, “The Recording Academy is proud to announce these latest Category changes to our Awards process.
These changes 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.”
He added that, with these new categories, the organization can now acknowledge and appreciate more artists of different talents and genres. And placing the Producer of the Year and the Songwriter of the Year in the General Field further ensures that the voters can actively participate and that deserving artists are recognized.
In his statement, Harvey further explained, “We are excited to honor and celebrate the creators and recordings in these categories while also exposing a wider range of music to fans worldwide.”
The Recording Academy also provided a specific definition of their new categories. The Best African Performance is “A track and singles category that recognizes recordings that utilize unique local expressions from across the African continent.” The category also highlights regional harmonic, melodic, and rhythmic musical ethnicities. This category will be inclusive but not entirely limited to Afrobeats, Afro-fusion, African Hip-Hop, Afro-House, Alte, Afro Pop, Amapiano, Bongo Flava, Chimurenga, Ethio Jazz, Fuji, Genge, Ghanaian Drill, High Life, Kizomba, Kwassa, Mapouka, and Ndombolo genres.
On the other hand, Best Pop Dance Recording is focused on danceable and up-tempo music in a pop arrangement. The eligible recordings should possess solid rhythmic beats with electronic-based instruments concentrating on hooks, melody, and vocal performance.
Lastly, for the Best Alternative Jazz Album, the category aims to commend artistic excellence in different jazz albums produced solo, duos, or as a group. These albums may or may not have vocals.
All these new categories are final as voted and agreed on by the Recording Academy during last month’s bi-yearly Board of Trustees meeting.
