Lizzo, Beyonce, Rihanna and Pharrell Williams are all previous winners of the Grammys’ best Urban Contemporary Album award.
The Grammys has dropped the term “urban” to describe music made by black artists at its awards shows, as one of several changes being made to “evolve with the musical landscape”.
It means the best urban contemporary album category will become best progressive R&B album for next year’s ceremony.”This change includes a more accurate definition to describe the merit or characteristics of music compositions or performances themselves within the genre of R&B,” a Grammys spokesman said.
Changes announced by The Recording Academy, which organises the Grammys, come after Republic Records, which represents stars including Drake, Ariana Grande, Stevie Wonder and Taylor Swift, confirmed it was erasing the “outdated” urban tag from all parts of its business with immediate effect.
The word “urban” has frequently been applied as a catch-all to describe music genres including hip-hop, grime, R&B, soul and rap. It is criticised as a term that groups all music of black origin into one genre.Lizzo’s Cuz I Love You won the award for best urban contemporary album at this year’s Grammy Awards, which took place in January, following in the footsteps of artists including Beyonce, Pharrell Williams, Rihanna and Frank Ocean.
Teenager Billie Eilish was the big winner, taking home all four of the night’s major awards.In other changes announced by the Grammys, the best rap/sung performance category has been renamed best melodic rap performance, while the Latin rock, urban or alternative album category has switched to best Latin rock or alternative album.
However, the word urban has been added to the award for best Latin pop album, which now becomes best Latin pop or urban album.”This category is intended to recognise excellence in Latin pop or urban music recordings that utilise a stylistic intention, song structure, lyrical content, and/ or musical presentation to create a sensibility that reflects the broad spectrum of Latin pop music style and culture,” organisers said.
“The category includes recordings from balladeers and commercial Latin music and is not limited to any one region.”
It is the latest music industry announcement as the Black Lives Matter movement continues following the death of George Floyd.
Mr Floyd, 46, was killed in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on 25 May, after white police officer Derek Chauvin was filmed kneeling on his neck for more than eight minutes during an arrest.
Earlier this month, millions of people and businesses followed music labels in pausing work for a day and posting black squares on their Instagram accounts as part of #BlackoutTuesday.
Race and Revolution: Is Change Going to Come?
Sky News will broadcast a global debate show on Tuesday night at 8pm – looking at the issues raised by the Black Lives Matter protests, and examining institutional racism and how we fix it.
The post Grammys drops ‘urban’ term to describe albums by black artists. appeared first on NaijForum.
