Grammy Awards Add Three New Categories, Including Best African Performance

The 66th Annual Grammy Awards will air live on CBS Sunday, Feb. 4, 2024, with nominations announced Friday, Nov. 10, 2023.

GRAMMY Awards has been revealed. On Thursday, the Recording Academy announced that the upcoming musical honors will be handed out at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, California, on Sunday, Feb. 4, 2024. The event is slated to air live starting at 8 p.m.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter “Squid Game” Season 2 at Netflix is rounding out its cast, with the addition of eight new cast members. New additions to the second season of the international hit series are: Park Gyu-young (“Sweet Home”), Jo Yu-ri, Kang Ae-sim (“Be Melodramatic,” “Move to Heaven”), Lee David (“The Fortress,” “Svaha: The Sixth Finger”), Lee Jin-uk (“Sweet Home,” “Miss Granny”), Choi Seung-hyun (“Tazza: The Hidden Card,” “Commitment”), Roh Jae-won (“Missing Yoon,” “Ditto”), and Won Ji-an (“D.P.”). A picture of the new cast members can be seen below. Netflix previously announced that Yim Si-Wan, Kang Ha-Neul, Park Sung-Hoon, and Yang Dong-Geun would also be joining the new season alongside returning cast members Lee Jung-jae, Lee Byung-hun, Gong Yoo, and Wi Ha-jun.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Madonna’s forthcoming “Celebration” tour has been postponed, according to an Instagram post from her manager Guy Oseary. The tour had been scheduled to launch in Vancouver on July 15. “On Saturday, June 24, Madonna developed a serious bacterial infection which led to a several-day stay in the ICU,” he wrote. “Her health is improving, however she is still under medical care. A full recovery is expected. “At this time we will need to pause all commitments, which includes the tour. “We will share more details with you as soon as we have them, including a new start date for the tour and for rescheduled shows.”

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Three hours and 52 minutes is a long time to be doing anything except sleeping — driving, cooking, painting a room — and it’s an excruciatingly long time to spend watching an awards show. But unlike those other activities, spending 3:52 watching a televised awards show (and that total doesn’t even include the hour-long red-carpet pre-show) leaves a person with little sense of accomplishment or rejuvenation. The BET Awards are always unusually long for an awards show that isn’t an Oscars or a Grammys — the network traditionally blocks out three-and-a-half hours on the last Sunday night in June — and most years it delivers with either a stacked talent lineup and/or a series of water-cooler moments. But whether due to the ongoing writers’ strike — which got at least two statements of support from people on the BET stage — or the fact that many artists, including Sunday’s big winners, SZA and Beyonce, are on the road, making up for touring time lost to the pandemic, there was little of either in evidence on Sunday night, in a show that, without naming names, was dominated by mediocre talent, over-long speeches or paid programming of some kind. It’s a safe bet that even the biggest fans of hip-hop and R&B had no idea who was on stage for a large percentage of the time. (The full winners list appears below.)

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Those who wondered if or when Migos might perform together again after the tragic death of cofounder Takeoff got their answer on Sunday night, in a total surprise performance by surviving group members Quavo and Offset. The show returned from a commercial break with a curtain raised on a darkened stage with two shoadwed figures emerging — who turned out to be Quavo and Offset, standing before an image of the Space Shuttle. As a recording of Takeoff’s verse on the song “Hotel Lobby” began (as recorded by his duo with Quavo, Unc & Phew), it became clear who they were and the crowd erupted. “BET!” the announcer shouted. “Doin’ this for Take!” The image of the Space Shuttle took off and was replaced by an image of Takeoff with his hand reaching skyward, and the pair launched into the group’s biggest hit, “Bad & Boujee.”

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles has announced a special initiative to help save Rockwood Music Hall, the long-running independent New York City music venue, which is in danger of closing. The #PreserveRockwood benefit concert series will launch on June 30 with Bareilles and will be an opportunity to see artists perform in the venue’s intimate setting while helping to keep it alive. 100% of the proceeds from the shows will be donated to Rockwood to help continue a space for independent and emerging artists to perform. Other artists initially joining the series include Chris Thile and Michael Daves (July 1), Amy Helm (July 6), Isabel Hagen (July 10), Ingrid Michaelson (July 20), Elle King (July 31) and The Lone Bellow (August 10), and more.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Unless you’ve got a “Succession”-sized story of ludicrous wealth combined with horrible behavior, it can be very challenging for a documentarian to make the life of an executive seem exciting — even one as colorful as that of Ron Delsener, one of the greatest concert promoters of all time… which is what makes “Ron Delsener Presents,” a documentary on that colorful life, all the more impressive. While the 90-odd-minute doc is a bit overlong and based largely on wealthy old music-biz veterans telling war stories from their rough-and-tumble years, director Jake Sumner uses deep research, fascinating concert and other archival footage, animation and snappy editing to create a very entertaining, if slightly smoothed-over, film that doubles as a sort of mini-history of the American concert business.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Highly touted British rapper Central Cee has signed a joint venture agreement with Columbia Records in partnership with Sony Music U.K., Variety has confirmed. Known to fans as “Cench,” the rapper became the first-ever British male rapper to be included in XXL magazine’s influential annual “Freshman Class” list, which was unveiled on Wednesday. Central Cee will also perform at this week’s 2023 Glastonbury festival, the largest festival in the U.K. The deal was led by Columbia executive vice president Bu Thiam with Central Cee’s manager, Bello. The fiercely independent rapper was the object of a heated bidding war in recent weeks; while terms of the Columbia deal were not announced, the joint venture suggests that he is likely to retain ownership of his recordings, as he has to date.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Paul McCartney has somewhat belatedly responded to the hysterical speculation that followed his announcement earlier this month that a “new” Beatles song has been created from a late ‘70s John Lennon demo recording with the assistance of AI. “Been great to see such an exciting response to our forthcoming Beatles project,” he wrote on social media. “No one is more excited than us to be sharing something with you later in the year. “We’ve seen some confusion and speculation about it,” he continued. “Seems to be a lot of guess work out there. Can’t say too much at this stage but to be clear, nothing has been artificially or synthetically created. It’s all real and we all play on it. We cleaned up some existing recordings – a process which has gone on for years.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music BMG has acquired a “substantial stake” in the work of legendary songwriter and two-time Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee Paul Simon, the company announced Thursday. The acquisition includes his royalty income in Simon & Garfunkel recordings as well as his neighboring rights income; Simon sold his publishing catalog to Sony Music Publishing in 2021. According the the announcement, the deal includes such songs as ‘The Sound Of Silence’, ‘The Boxer’, ‘Mrs Robinson’ and ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water.” Paul Simon was represented in the transaction by Gene Salomon and Don Passman at Gang, Tyre, Ramer, Brown & Passman. 

new rules and guidelines book read.That said, music authored by a human and augmented with generative AI elements is permitted, so long as the human’s contribution to a work is “meaningful” and not trivially small. Furthermore, the human’s contribution must be in the category the work is under award consideration for.

For the past two years, the Recording Academy has expanded the field of nominees for its “big four” categories — Album, Song, and Record of the Year, as well as Best New Artist — from eight candidates to 10. The institution will return to the old number in 2024, the New York Times reports and raise the bar for Album of the Year eligibility, now requiring featured artists, producers, songwriters, and engineers to be credited on at least 20 percent of a nominated album to qualify for an award.

More changes in the Grammy rules: The Recording Academy announced today that the number of nominees in the four top categories (album, song and record of the year, and best new artist) will be reduced to eight for the 2024 awards.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Grammys Reduce Album, Song, Record of the Year and Best New Artist From 10 to Eight Nominees As it does every year, the Recording Academy has updated its rules and guidelines following its semiannual board of trustees meeting, and while three new categories were announced earlier this week, one major change was unveiled today among several less-impactful ones: The four top categories — album, song and record of the year and best new artist — have been reduced to eight categories from 10. An AI-related rule was also introduced, which effectively states that only human creators are eligible for awards, but, like all things AI, requires an extensive series of caveats to cover the vast possibilities that the technology makes possible in this still-developing area; the full list appears below.)

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Grammy-winning Songwriters Hall of Fame member Cynthia Weil — who co-wrote “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” “On Broadway,” “Make Your Own Kind of Music,” “Walking in the Rain,” “You’re My Soul and Inspiration,” “Uptown,” “He’s So Shy,” “Kicks,” “Here You Come Again,” “Through the Fire,” “Somewhere Out There” and many other hits, mostly with her husband and Brill Building colleague Barry Mann — died earlier this month at the age of 82. She was one of the top “Brill Building” songwriters that came out of the Midtown Manhattan building of the same name (although much of the work actually was done a couple of blocks uptown at 1650 Broadway) and spawned literally hundreds of hits throughout the 1960s for the Righteous Brothers, the Ronettes, the Drifters, the Monkees, the Animals, multiple Phil Spector productions and many others. Along with Mann — to whom Weil was married for some 62 years — the coterie included another young married couple, Carole King and the late Gerry Goffin.

Afrobeats will be recognized among three new categories that will debut at next year’s Grammy Awards, the Recording Academy announced today.

The Recording Academy has announced the addition of three new awards categories beginning at the 66th Annual Grammy Awards next year.Awards for Best Alternative Jazz Album, Best Pop Dance Recording, and Best African Music Performance will now be their own separate categories. Two previous categories, Songwriter of the Year, Non-Classical and Producer of the Year, Non-Classical, have been adjusted so that all Grammy voters can weigh in, regardless of genre.Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason jr.

Even with the institution of gender neutral categories in the acting and supporting acting fields, everything old is new again as the Seventh Annual Black Reel Television Awards (BoltsTV) announced the list of this year’s nominees for recognition. Two names were still returning favorites to the nominations field which also included one record-breaking repeat performance and one surprising new entrant to challenge them all.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Omar Apollo, Brandy Clark and Coco Jones performed and three people were honored Tuesday night at the first T.J. Martell Foundation since 2019, which raised more than $1.3 million for cancer research. The honorees included Warner Records Co-Chairman and COO Tom Corson, who received the Lifetime Music Industry Award; Def Jam Chief Creative Officer and executive VP Archie Davis, who received the Rising Music Superstar Award; Grammy Award-winning and Tony-nominated songwriter/producer Shane McAnally, who received the Spirit of Music Award. The event was hosted by Gala Co-Chairs and Board Chairman John Esposito, Tunji Balogun, Aaron Bay-Schuck, Robert Carlton, Steve Gawley, Laura Swanson and Julie Swidler.