Innholdsfortegnelse for December 12, 2020 i Billboard Magazine

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE RECORDING ACADEMY and the Black music community has been fraught since 1989. That’s when DJ Jazzy Jeff and Will Smith boycotted the Grammy Awards upon learning that the first-ever presentation for best rap performance (which they later won) would not be televised. In the following 30 years, R&B and hip-hop have seen Grammy highs (album of the year wins for Lauryn Hill and OutKast in 1999 and 2004, respectively) and frustrating lows (snubs for both JAY-Z and Kendrick Lamar in that same category, in 2018) as the 63-year-old academy has grappled with the community’s demands for greater representation and more transparency in the nomination process overall. The academy took major steps to address those issues in 2017, when it established a rap nominations review committee,…

“I’ve been working in the entertainment industry since I started working,” says Goich-Andreadis, who began her career as a copywriter for a humor-based boutique agency. Since then, she spent two decades as a stand-up comedian; landed radio gigs in both Detroit and Los Angeles; married pianist and harmonica player Teddy “Zig-Zag” Andreadis (Carole King, Guns N’ Roses, Chuck Berry); and spent years working for Playboy at the Playboy Jazz Festival before becoming a genre manager in 2011. In January, she’ll celebrate her 10th Grammys. What would people be surprised to learn about your role? One question that people ask is, “It’s a one-day show. Do you just work half of the year?” No! We start in the spring with entries coming in. We print lists, alphabetically; we check for…

A pianist, composer, musical director and music educator, Colón was a session musician in Puerto Rico and Boston before he moved to Los Angeles looking to shift to another sector of the industry. He interviewed for a position with the Latin Recording Academy, became a temp in 2010 and ultimately an awards manager there, and then switched to working for the Recording Academy five years ago (“Same building, opposite sides of the same floor”). As manager for the soundtrack-focused visual media category, he’s already thinking about how the film industry’s pandemic-induced delays will affect the 2022 Grammys. “We’ve had a healthy number of entries for this year,” he says. “We just don’t know what’s going to happen next year.” What is the vibe of your screening committee meetings like?…

Wendy Ong President, TaP Management and TaP Records, U.S. “I love what the cast of Schitt’s Creek did for the Emmys, when they all got dressed up and watched the show together. Instead of the typical messy afterparty [with] a ton of random people, I actually appreciate being able to enjoy the evening with the people who really contributed to the success of our artists and TaP Music.” Dre London Founder/CEO, London Entertainment “I’m going to celebrate with my small core team. We don’t need a big party — just the right people around. Everyone must do their part in ensuring everyone remains healthy so we can start returning to normalcy and bring the show back on the road.” Janet Weir Manager, Red Light Management; owner, House of 42…

“The job is so all-encompassing, it’s almost hard to put in words,” says former music journalist Brown of managing three genre categories. “You’re an A&R, you’re artist relations, you’re on the ground interacting with everybody in the business from executives to upstart musicians, just letting them know how we work and how, basically, we’re an organization for them.” Since taking the job in early 2018, Brown has overseen a reimagining of sorts for his categories as the academy endeavored to grow and diversify its membership and, in turn, produce Grammy nominees more reflective of the genres’ current states — particularly in rap and R&B. But that’s just one part of what he does. “We have so many different initiatives on our minds throughout the year — everything from advocacy,…

Fuentes was an “immersive producer” for BuzzFeed and Red Bull virtual-reality projects who moonlighted as a DJ (he opened for Shakira on her Sale El Sol tour) when the Recording Academy called in 2018, asking if he would manage the Grammys’ world music category. (Late last year it changed to “global music.”) “It so happens I have an ethnomusicology degree from UCLA,” says Fuentes. “It was like, ‘Twist my arm.’ ” The other genres he manages excite him as well: Fuentes calls new age music “some of the most relevant” in the “noisy” world we currently live in, and he loves how the contemporary instrumental category spotlights performers who “really are very innovative and progressive.” Why the category name change from “world” to “global” music? This was a result…

Even as the Recording Academy works toward becoming more transparent about the Grammy voting process, each year’s batch of nominees leaves plenty in the industry wondering who behind the scenes makes it all happen. The answer, at least in part: Awards Department head Bill Freimuth and his team of genre managers — yes, actual humans! They spend months assembling, administering and facilitating first the genre screening committees (calling on genre experts ranging from artists and producers to label executives and journalists to meticulously sort entries), then the nomination review committees (working with local academy chapters to populate them as thoughtfully as possible and with no conflicts of interest) — all to aid in narrowing down the more than 23,000 entries in 84 categories to the names ultimately on ballots.…

Growing up, Herber always knew she wanted to work in music: “I was in band, played a bunch of instruments and pretended to be Whitney Houston.” Grad school at the University of Southern California’s entertainment-centric communications program led to an internship at Universal Music Group; a stint as publicity and artist relations manager at UMG’s catalog division, UMe; and eventually a job with Moby. “Once I started learning from him and getting more into dance music,” she says, “it was like, ‘This is my community. These are my people.’ ” She joined the academy’s awards team in 2017. What’s the most challenging part of your job? Since we do have a brand that can have a specific meaning in people’s minds, a challenge can be crossing the bridge from…

SONG of the YEAR “BLACK PARADE” Beyoncé SONGWRITERS Denisia Andrews, Stephen Bray, Shawn Carter, Brittany Coney, Derek James Dixie, Akil King, Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, Kim “Kaydence” Krysiuk, Rickie “Caso” Tice LABELS Parkwood/Columbia “Put your fist up in the air, show Black love,” sings Beyoncé on “Black Parade,” which was released amid worldwide protests against racial injustice in June. As showcased during the end credits of Beyoncé’s visual project Black Is King, “Black Parade” is a celebration of African culture and heritage in the face of historical struggle; it immediately became associated with the Black Lives Matter movement upon release and scored Beyoncé a 40th career top 40 hit on the Billboard Hot 100. The superstar — whose first song of the year nomination was for the Destiny’s Child smash “Say…