The Grammys are considering adding an Afrobeats category to its long list of categories if it wants to draw more listeners to its annual awards show, sources with knowledge of the planning process say.
The Recording Academy has been discussing the idea for more than a year. The category has been discussed several times over the past four months, sources tell Billboard, and in several different forms.
The Grammys began considering such a category in 2015, but a decision was deferred by their board of judges because Afrobeats is not a genre, and its members don’t have the “flamboyant energy that lends itself to an award,” a source told Billboard.
“We want to do something a little different that has the same level of passion that’s going to bring some music fans back into the show who had maybe maybe not been here recently, and they’re going to get lost in the songs and the moments, and they just really love and appreciate these artists,” a different source previously said.
Now, sources say they believe the Grammy’s are leaning toward adding the category and hope to have a decision in place toward the end of the year. They say the Academy hasn’t settled on the title just yet, though, and that there are a few names from the genre in contention.
One Afrobeat who has been mentioned as a possible title is Nigerian musician and singer Konshens, who last year won the Grammy for outstanding male R&B performance for his hit “If I Had a Boat.”
He is in the running along with singer and R&B star M.I.A., whose “Paper Planes” is the Grammy-winning song, as well as Nigerian singer-songwriter and pianist Wizkid, who won best R&B album.
A version of this story first appeared in Billboard.
