The Grammys arrived last year embroiled in scandal, with newly installed Recording Academy president and CEO Deborah Dugan ousted just over a week before the ceremony. Dugan had entered the role pledging to improve the academy’s woeful record on honoring Black and female musicians, and claimed that her dismissal was punishment for her efforts to reform the institution, which the academy denied.
The two parties are currently in arbitration, but almost a year later, the nominations for the 2021 Grammys, announced on Tuesday, have done little to temper the familiar criticisms of the awards. The academy’s chairman, Harvey Mason Jr., has replaced Dugan on an interim basis, and as The New York Times pointed out on Tuesday, the organization invited over 2,300 members to join its voting ranks over the past year in an effort to diversify its nominations, with 74% accepting. After Black Lives Matter protests swelled across the world this…
