The Recording Academy wants everyone in the tent, and everyone to be treated equally for the Grammy Awards. So today they’ve announced implementation of an inclusion rider, the first awards show to do so.
This is a milestone for the Grammys. Kudos to Harvey Mason, Jr. and the authors of the inclusion rider including Kalpana Kotagal (partner, Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll), Fanshen Cox (production and development executive, Pearl Street Films) and key contributors Valeisha Butterfield Jones (Co-President, Recording Academy) and Allie-Ryan Butler (founding director, Warner Music | Blavatnik Center for Music Business at Howard University).
“I am proud that the Academy is leading the charge in releasing an Inclusion Rider for the music community that counters systematic bias,” said Mason in a statement. “We were proud to work with a very diverse crew last year for the Grammy Awards, and this is the culmination of a years-long effort to create a rider for the production of the Grammys. But this is only the beginning. We are committed to putting in the real work required to help create a pipeline of diverse talent and drastically change representation.”
“With the Inclusion Rider, Color Of Change and the Recording Academy are working to change the rules that have enabled systemic discrimination in the music business for far too long,” said Rashad Robinson, president of Color Of Change. “The Inclusion Rider is a concrete accountability mechanism aimed at breaking through an endless stream of empty commitments. It will ensure that Black people finally gain the authority in the industry that matches their essential contributions to it. An initiative of #ChangeMusic, the Inclusion Rider changes the rules of the industry’s hiring and management practices to open up opportunities for work and promotion that have long been denied.”
The full rider can be read here. The next Grammy Awards take place January 31, 2022 in Los Angeles.
