Next year’s Grammy Awards will be produced under a new inclusion rider meant to “ensure” diversity both in front of the camera and backstage, the Recording Academy said Wednesday.
The inclusion rider will be a contract addendum obligating the production company behind the 2022 show “to make its best effort to recruit, audition, interview and hire on-stage and off-stage people who have been historically and systematically excluded from the industry,” the Recording Academy said.
The rider is being written in partnership with the influential racial justice advocacy group Color of Change and will be released publicly on Sept. 16, officials said.
Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. called the rider a “monumental step to ensure equitable industry standards that support a more diverse and inclusive music community.”
“This inclusion rider is a written rule that will change the culture of hiring at the Grammys and will make inclusion the norm,” Rashad Robinson, president of Color Of Change, said in a statement.
The new rider comes after the Recording Academy scrapped what many considered “secret” nominating committees susceptible to corruption and racial bias.
In the past, massively successful Black artists have been recognized in categories such as hip hop and R&B but sidelined in the four most coveted categories: song, album and record of the year and best new artist.
The Weeknd, for example, said he was boycotting the annual show last spring after he was shut out of any nominations despite the runaway success of his 2020 album “After Hours,” which included the monster hit “Blinding Lights.”
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