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Photo Credit: Harvey Mason Jr. by M. Kovac \/ CC by 4.0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Music Fans have noticed some major gaps in country music representation at the Grammys. Recording Academy chief Harvey Mason Jr. addresses the matter.<\/h2>\n
Harvey Mason Jr. has been the head of the Recording Academy for six years now, and it\u2019s come during a tumultuous time for the Grammys and beyond\u2014between the COVID pandemic, the Los Angeles wildfires, and a myriad of controversies surrounding nominees and winners, as well as that of the removal of Mason\u2019s predecessor, Deborah Dugan. But it\u2019s also come during a time of surging interest in country music, yet many fans have noticed a lack of country representation scoring wins at the ceremony.<\/p>\n
Beyonc\u00e9 scored a major win last year with her country-flavored album, Cowboy Carter<\/em>, but her dominance in the genre was also extremely polarizing. Meanwhile, Morgan Wallen had one of the biggest albums of 2025 with I\u2019m the Problem<\/em>, but notably declined to submit<\/a> any of his solo work for consideration. Similarly, Zach Bryan has also decided to continue his boycott against the Recording Academy.<\/p>\n This year, breakthrough country artists who dominated the charts in late 2025\u2014Zach Top, Ella Langley, Megan Moroney\u2014were entirely shut out of the 2026 Best New Artist nominations. That has raised some understandable questions about the validity of serious country stars competing in major Grammy categories.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s really about what the voters choose to vote for every given year, and it\u2019s cyclical,\u201d said Mason, adding that he hopes the concerns around political influence don\u2019t proliferate, \u201cbecause it really is not that.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe will be looking into all our genre categories and the voters associated with them and making sure they are balanced, like we do every year. And after this year, we\u2019ll do it again,\u201d he explained. \u201cIt\u2019s generally not based on who gets nominated, though, to tell you the truth. It\u2019s based on, do we have a representative voting body of the different genres? And provided that we have the right percentage and ratios, then we\u2019ll be in the right spot. We can\u2019t tell what those people will vote for, but we can make sure that we have a representative voting body.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re going to keep an eye on how we can make sure we\u2019re being reflective of what\u2019s going on in music, so from time to time, we\u2019ll need to add more members in different genres\u2014maybe there\u2019ll be a category member, producer, or an engineer that we\u2019ll need more of. And that\u2019s work that we do literally 365 days of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n While he wouldn\u2019t outright state that a given year\u2019s results change the way the Academy recruits, Mason did admit that it\u2019s \u201cmore towards the underpinning of the process,\u201d that it\u2019s about the number of members they have that represent a genre, as opposed to specifically being based around outcomes.<\/p>\n<\/section><\/div>\nIn an interview<\/a> with Variety<\/em>, Harvey Mason Jr. addressed the \u201csurprisingly low representation for country music in the big categories this year,\u201d something that the outlet points out used to be the case with hip-hop.<\/h4>\n
Mason also said that he felt membership representation in the Recording Academy is \u201cvery well balanced,\u201d but that it remains fluid and is subject to change \u201cevery week, every month, all year long.\u201d<\/h4>\n