The Recording Academy Is On a Global Mission

Mesfin Fekadu
·7 min read

The Recording Academy is in a global state of mind.

With the rise of genres like K-pop and Afrobeats and the steady domination of Latin music — from traditional regional Mexican to contemporary Latin trap music — the organization that puts on the Grammy Awards annually has been on a mission to globalize and expand its presence and work around the world.

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This year, the Academy partnered with the United Nations to show how the power of music promotes social change around the world and launched a campaign that encourages artists to use their talent to support human rights issues, including advocacy for LGBTQ+ rights, gender equality, women’s empowerment and climate justice; the Latin Recording Academy, launched 25 years ago, will hold the Latin Grammys (set for Nov. 16) outside of the U.S. for the first time — in Sevilla, Spain; and the Grammys will debut its best African music performance category at the 2024 show, giving African-based artists more exposure.

And last month Academy CEO Harvey Mason jr. traveled to Washington, D.C., for the State Department’s Global Music Diplomacy Initiative launch, which is a direct result of the PEACE Through Music Diplomacy Act, which the Academy continuously advocated for (President Biden signed it into law last year). Mason jr. and U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken presented iconic musician Quincy Jones, a 28-time Grammy winner, the first-ever Peace through Music Award at the event.

“In the last few years the Academy has tried to position itself to use music and our platform for good and for global change, and we see the idea of exploring what we can do around the world as a very next logical step — both for our members and for what we can accomplish to move the needle,” Mason jr. tells The Hollywood Reporter. “The way music has been going, the way that the world is going, it’s becoming smaller, technology is allowing us to do more, and we’re seeing these really thriving, vibrant music scenes maturing and developing all around the world, and the music ecosystem has just evolved. It’s just changed. You’re hearing songs from other parts of the world on our streaming platforms and radio. You’re hearing our music being exported around the world, but things that used to keep music very contained — borders, languages, customs, beliefs — they’re really being wiped out and music is transcending and going around the world.”

Later this month the Academy will be an official partner of the Abu Dhabi Culture Summit and participate in workshops and dialogue about the Middle Eastern music scene for a second year; at the 2022 Grammys the organization dedicated a segment to the war in Ukraine, which included an address by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and an original song by John Legend; in April Grammys on the Hill highlighted Afghan-Australian ethnomusicologist Dr. Ahmad Sarmast and his Afghanistan National Institute of Music; and at this year’s Grammys First Lady Dr. Jill Biden presented the inaugural best song for social change award to the Iranian protest song “Baraye” by Shervin Hajipour.

Mason jr. says the Academy has spent time on the road “meeting with music people, meeting with ministers of culture, meeting with influential people, government, leadership to really get a sense of what they’re working on in their areas.

“We’ve been going to every corner of the world to learn and understand what’s happening and where we might be able to be helpful or in service. We’ve also been studying what’s happening on the business side of music. Where are there consumers? Where are people creating a lot of music? Where are people listening to a lot of music? Where are we seeing the next music scene developing?” he explains.

“What are the things that are lacking? What are the things that they feel they want to improve? Or what are the things they’re trying to develop? And is there space for us? Is there room for us? We don’t go places thinking we’re going to teach somebody something or we’re going to bring this great expertise and knowledge. We’re going places to try and understand how we can collaborate, how we can be a part of their music ecosystem,” Mason jr. continues. “Our members are making the music that’s being exported around the world. We know this. It’s happened for a long time, but even more so now. What we don’t know is how our members are able to control, monetize and protect their work all around the world. There’s billions of people that are listening to the music, but we want to also make sure there’s a healthy equitable ecosystem where creators from the U.S. and around the world can participate and benefit and earn a fair living from their art.”

In Africa specifically, Mason jr. says the continent is an open market for musicians to find audiences who can consume their music. “In Africa, there’s 1.4 billion people. It’s the youngest population on the planet as far as the continent is concerned. They’re consuming probably just as much music, if not more, than anywhere else in the world. So the market in Africa, if developed, could be a massive music market where everyone from around the globe might be saying ‘how can we get into the African market?’ instead of ‘how can we get into the U.S. market?’”

Mason jr. — who is also a popular, Grammy-nominated songwriter-producer who has worked with Beyoncé, Justin Timberlake, Aretha Franklin, Justin Bieber, Toni Braxton, Chris Brown and others — says he traveled to Korea more than a decade ago to work with K-pop musicians. “And I saw the opportunity and I was like, ‘This K-pop music is incredible. They’re so creative. They’re making great records. The artists, the development is there.’ And it really became embedded in my consciousness that it wasn’t just about making music for the U.S., and it wasn’t just about producing artists in the U.S. And it really opened up my mind, and that expansiveness is something that I’ve carried over to my role here at the Academy. And that’s really, for me personally, one of the first examples of how I see the value in globalization and why it makes sense for the Academy, for our members, for our industry to continue to reach out and continue to expand because there’s just so much great opportunity.”

“A big part of why we’re doing this is because I strongly believe in the power of music. That’s the reason I’m here. I promise you, I really love celebrating the best of the best year-to-year with trophies and Grammys and ceremonies and parties and the shiny stage, but what I really love is using that as an opportunity to amplify and talk about what music can do,” he continues. “Going to a country where the narrative that the world has heard about them has always been one thing, and through music, they can start telling different stories. They can start opening other people’s eyes and hopefully other people’s hearts. And think about parts of the world where maybe they haven’t always had the ability to express themselves or have freedom of speech, or they’ve been oppressed or they’ve been underrepresented — through music, they can tell these stories.”

He adds: “And as we start traveling the world and meeting with these creators, we want to support them wherever they’re from. We’re not going places to try and get into politics or get into government. It’s about the creators. And think about the idea of using music to allow all these people from around the world to express themselves, to collaborate, to work with other people and tell different stories — that’s one of the big reasons why I strongly believe that it’s incumbent on the Academy to make sure we’re representing not just a small subset of music people, but a global group of music creators.”

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