Highlife and Ghanaian drill also known as Asakaa added in new category for 2024 Grammy Awards

The Academy was considering creating a new category exclusively to Afrobeats and African music, which has finally become a reality.

The Recording Academy’s CEO, Harvey Manson Jr., made an official visit to Ghana in 2022, where he reaffirmed the organization’s dedication to accurately portraying African music. He emphasised the care with which they handled the issue of accurately representing the continent’s unique musical environment.

The Grammy Awards in 2024 will have three intriguing new categories. The first is the much-anticipated “Best African Music Performance,” which honours remarkable records that include distinctive indigenous expressions from around Africa.

This category will honour the many melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic traditions found across the continent. 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 are among the genres eligible for inclusion.

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Along with this ground-breaking innovation, the Recording Academy has also established the “Best Alternative Jazz Album” and “Best Pop Dance Recording” categories, widening the range of genres recognised at the renowned event.

Following a comprehensive voting procedure, these new categories were accepted during the Recording Academy’s semiannual Board of Trustees meeting in May 2023. These additions and changes, according to grammy.com, illustrate the Academy’s dedication to actively listening to and responding to comments from the music community. The Recording Academy seeks to remain relevant in the ever-changing musical scene by appropriately portraying a varied spectrum of important musical genres.

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The Recording Academy’s CEO, Harvey Mason Jr., expressed delight in announcing these revisions, saying: “By introducing these three new categories, we are able to acknowledge and appreciate a broader array of artists.” The move to relocate the Producer of the Year and Songwriter of the Year categories to the General Field ensures that all voters can participate in recognizing excellence in these fields. Mason added, “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 addition of the Best African Music Performance category marks an important step forward for African musicians, who now have a dedicated forum to display their skills on a worldwide scale.