Ghanaian Drill Finds Its Way In The Newly Created Category In The Grammy's

After a decade of debate on the inclusion of African Music, Alternative Music and Jazz Pop, the Grammy Academy on 13thJune, 2023 have announced the addition of these three new categories to 66th Grammy Awards.

The African music category includes Ghanaian Drill which was revived by the Asaaka Boys from Kumasi in 2019. 

According to Recording Academy, the three new categories comprises of Best African Music Performance, Best Alternative Jazz Album and Best Pop Dance Recording.

However, three other categories have been moved to the General field. Thus, the category of Producer of the year, Non Classical and Songwriter of the year.

These amendments and additions where voted and passed on by the Recording Academy at their recent Semi-annual Board Trustees Meeting held in May 2023.

The CEO Of the Recording Academy, Harvey Mason in addressing the media said '' These changes reflects our commitment to actively listen and respond to feedback from our music community accurately represents a divert range of relevant music genre and stay aligned with the ever growing music landscape. ''

Harvey continued that the Academy is excited to honor and celebrate the creators and recordings in these categories, while exposing a wide range of music to fans worldwide.

Moreover, the some popular genres in the Best African performance category includes Ghanaian Drill, Afro beat, Afro fusion, Afro Pop, Amapiano, High life and other genres from other parts of the African continent.

The inclusion of Ghanaian Drill comes as an excitement to many Ghanaian entertainment fanatics as it is seen as a representation of Ghana in the Grammy's. This comes after genres like Afrobeat and High life is claimed to have originated from Nigeria.

Culture Journalist at 3music TV, Olele Salvador in a tweet said '' The beauty about this news is the recognition of Ghanaian Drill, a big Shout out to the Asaaka Boys in Kumerica who put their hands on the plough and never looked back. This is a testament of what we have and if we could only narrow our this sound and other indigenous ones and ampilfy it to the world we wouldn't have to worry about winning any Afro Beat recognition. ''

These three new categories will be launched at the 66th Grammy's which will be held later on in the year.