The Grammys have announced they will be changing the name of the category “Best World Music” to “Best Global Music” to avoid “connotations of colonialism.” The Recording Academy, which runs and hosts The Grammy Awards, says the decision was a result of “continuing to embrace a truly global mindset.” The award most recently went to Benin artist, Angélique Kidjo, with other recent winners including Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Yo-Yo Ma, Ravi Shankar and Tinariwen.
The Recording Academy said in a statement; “Over the summer we held discussions with artists, ethnomusicologists, and linguists from around the world who determined that there was an opportunity to update the best world music album category toward a more relevant, modern, and inclusive term … The change symbolises a departure from the connotations of colonialism, folk, and ‘non-American’ that the former term embodied while adapting to current listening trends and cultural evolution among the diverse communities it may represent.”
Wait this is pretty cool! The category has been renamed to “Best Global Music Album” from “World Music” https://t.co/fk4H0LTRNr
— Iman Mekonen (@childishimanino) November 3, 2020
The term “world music” originated in the UK to help market music from non-western artists in 1987. The Grammys went on to create their “Best World Music” category in 1992. In recent years it has been realised how this term isn’t appropriate with many publications deciding to not to use the phrase anymore.
This comes after many organisations decided to no longer use the term “urban”. In June, The Recording Academy decided to change the name of the “Best Urban Contemporary Album” category to “Best Progressive R&B Album” because the term was mostly used to describe music made by a black person. The Grammys still use the word urban to describe Latin awards in their category best “Latin Pop or Urban Album Award.”
In July it was reported that Spotify would no longer use the phrase to describe music made by a black artist. The playlists containing the word urban are now named based of the genre they fit into.
