Harvey Mason jr. on 2,300 New Grammy Voting Members, the Asian Pop Category Uproar & More: ‘We Want To Bring More People Into the Tent’

When first-round voting for the 69th annual Grammy Awards opens on Monday (Oct. 12), a considerably larger voting body will determine the nominees than in prior years.

The Recording Academy has revealed details of its 2026 new member class, which includes more than 2,300 new voting members. Here’s their demographic breakdown of these new voting members: People of color: 53%; people aged 39 or under: 54%; and women: 33%.

The new member class also includes more than 800 professional members, who are non-voting.

The 69th annual Grammy Awards will be presented on Feb. 7. The show will have a new host (Trevor Noah bowed out after six years) and will air/stream on new network platforms — ABC, Disney+ and Hulu — after the show ended a 54-year run on CBS.

The Academy will present 100 awards on Feb. 7, the highest number since 2011. It added five categories in June, including one that attracted far more attention than the other four combined – best Asian pop music performance. Two of the biggest acts in Asian pop – BTS and Stray Kids – announced that they wouldn’t enter the category, not wishing to be pigeonholed. It’s fair to say the Academy did not anticipate that reaction.

Harvey Mason jr., who has been CEO of the Recording Academy since May 2021 (following a 16-month run as interim CEO), spoke with Billboard over Zoom on Wednesday (Oct. 7) for this wide-ranging discussion.

You invited the largest new member class in your history – 4,000 people. And 3,100 people took you up on it, including 2,300 voting members. Do you anticipate continuing to add members at this pace, or can you see a day when you’ll just be maintaining?

I don’t know if it’s necessarily maintaining or trying to add at a particular pace. It’s really about trying to make sure we get the right members who are relevant and qualified to be voters in our organization. As music grows and evolves and changes, I’m sure our membership will do the same. And I would imagine it would continue to grow as music is becoming more global, as more people are making music and working in our industry, so I could see some growth, but it’s going to be driven by our efforts to try and make sure our membership is the best possible membership we can assemble.

More than half of this year’s new voting members are people of color, and more than half are people aged 39 and under. One-third are women. You’re obviously zeroing in on those three demographics. Do you have targets in mind where you’d like to wind up?

Well, first, I would say we’re not really necessarily zeroing in just on those. We’re really zeroing in on holistically making sure our membership is reflective of what’s going on in music and in the world. And so, we’re always going to continue to look at those numbers and make sure that we’re being, I guess, representative — and as things change in our industry, as genres change, as popularity of different types of music changes, we hope to mirror that. The one number that I know we have been intentionally focused on was women and people of color because we were, I think, a little bit beneath the mark where we wanted to be there, so we’re getting to a better place. There’s still work to do, and we’re going to continue to watch all those numbers.

When you say there’s still work to do, it suggests that you do have some goal in mind.

It’s just my nature, and it’s the attitude and energy of our organization, that we’re always going to continue to try and improve. I won’t say that there’s a specific number we’re trying to reach, but we do want to do better every year at making sure our membership is the right membership.

Do you also look at Grammy nominations and awards results to see how you’re doing in membership?

We do, and it’s not necessarily who’s winning or who’s losing. It’s just making sure that the genres are represented and making sure we’re having enough voters with knowledge and expertise across different types of music to represent those genres across the entire ballot.

If you were to look at results, Kendrick Lamar won record of the year the last two years, this year for a collaboration with SZA. Bad Bunny won album of the year this year. I would say the results show progress.

Yes, I am proud of the progress to this point — but as I said, we want to continue to get better and evolve and make sure we’re getting this right.

In best new artist, you’ve increased the number of times someone can be entered from three to four. Why do you think artists are taking longer to break than used to be the case?

I don’t know if it’s taking longer for them to break. But I guess we’re giving them a little bit more flexibility, so they can submit one additional time. I do think, with artists being able to release music on their own sooner, that that window is extended as far as the period of time in which they first release music to when they reach popularity. Before, you had to be signed to a label, so that took some time. And then before you could release music, you needed to get either an independent distributor or a label, so that took some time. Whereas now, as soon as you start making music, if you really wanted to, you could release [it]. So, I do think that opens up the window, and gives us the need to give somebody a little bit more space to submit an additional year.

Megan Moroney won new artist of the year at the CMA Awards two years ago. Don Toliver has had five consecutive top 10 albums on the Billboard 200 dating back to 2020. So, there are artists in the mix for best new artist this year whose “newness” is debatable. You’re being quite lenient now, allowing artists to enter four times. When you’re that lenient, doesn’t it become hard to turn anyone away — and if you say no to somebody, don’t you get calls saying “How is Artist X eligible and my artist isn’t?”

We will always get those calls, whether it’s about best new artist or another category, and that’s why I always say this is this stuff is hard, and it is subjective and I’m thankful that we have committees in place, our membership in place, professional music creators making some of these judgment calls. You know, there’s committees that listen to the screened material and decide is the prominence being reached this year or have they passed it? Or are they still building? So, there’s a lot of discretion there, but it is tough. It is subjective, and only thing I can say is we’re doing everything we can to try and get it as right as we possibly can.

It seems to me that best new artist has really evolved into best breakthrough artist – the artist that made a meaningful breakthrough in this year. You’re probably locked into the best new artist name, but am I right that that is what it is? 

There’s a couple different ways to interpret “new.” Some people interpret new as someone that they’ve just started to hear of in a big way, and some [interpret] it as somebody who’s actually just starting to make music. So it really depends on the interpretation.

So, the name is here to stay.

I won’t say “here to stay,” because we revisit so many things every year, and we’re always open for discussions. And if people who submit proposals think that there’s a name change that needs to happen, we’ll always entertain that. And that’s the cool thing about our processes. There’s nothing set in stone.

You have taken some heat for not doing right by country music in the marquee categories in recent years. Have you done anything in the last year that might change that?

We’ve been working hard on that because we do feel like there’s work to be done. Comes down to membership and making sure the right people are being included in the process and invited to take part in the process. And I’ve spent some time working with that community, listening to that community, meeting with people in Nashville and other locations, but I agree with you. There’s still work to be done.

What, if anything, did you learn from the experience with the Asian Pop category that you can apply going forward to new category rollouts, or communicating with different genre communities?

I would say, regardless of what our intention is – which, by the way, is to always celebrate more music and more music people – we have to absolutely think and rethink and make sure that we are conscious of how new categories or new ideas land with those we’re trying to celebrate. So, that means really taking the time to listen, bringing in the right groups of collaborators, and being really, really sensitive to how people want to be honored and how they want to be acknowledged — because, as I’ve told you, we want to bring more people into the tent. We want to bring more types of music, more creators, and we want people to be excited about these categories. And so, if there’s something that we’re doing that is not eliciting that response, then absolutely we need to look at how we’re doing, how we’re setting these categories up, how we’re rolling them out, and who we’re collaborating with.

You have said that going forward the academy might be more open and less secretive about new categories and other changes to the awards process, instead of keeping things under wraps until you issue a press release in June.

It’s something that I think makes a lot of sense, and it’s something that our chair and our awards and nomination committee and our board of trustees are talking about, and considering things around that.

Might you have multiple Asian pop categories next year?

I would say all that is open for discussion, and we will be having some very robust conversations around not just the Asian pop category, but all of our categories — especially as it relates to expanding, extending our reach into the global markets.

Let’s talk about your new “ballot plus” option, where voters can apply to receive an exception to your 10/3 policy by showing credits in multiple fields.  I think of it as a loophole to the 10/3 policy — where, after voting in the six General Field categories, people could vote in no more than 10 additional categories spread across no more than three different fields.

Do you think it’s a loophole in a bad way or in a good way?

I thought the 10/3 policy was a smart idea. The Academy was saying “We want your areas of greatest expertise, not just any category where you recognize a name.” It was brilliant, and then you kind of watered it down.

Well, I actually think it’s the opposite. I don’t think it waters it down. I think it strengthens our voting results. Our objective is to make voting better, and the outcomes more accurate with what’s going on. And so, this ballot plus gives somebody who works in [more than three] different [fields] of music, who is an expert in different [fields] of music, the opportunity to actually use that expertise in the areas they’re working. There were people that had worked across different [fields] and really had deep knowledge of a lot of different music. And think about it: if you’re an artist and you’ve worked across more than three types of [fields], you couldn’t even vote in those fields. Also, you have to qualify to do this, so it’s not like anybody can do it.

How many people qualified?

I don’t have that number. I don’t think it is going to be a huge number. There’s a process to apply for that option. [Editor’s Note: Mason’s crack staff got back to me with the answer: “Approximately 200 voting members opted in and were approved for Ballot Plus this year. Ballot Plus is an opt-in alternative to the 10/3 voting structure that allows Voting Members with expertise across multiple genres to vote in up to 15 peer-related Categories, regardless of Field, based on their verified professional credits and contributions. Voting Members who opt in must submit credits, and participation is subject to verification of those credits.”]

You’re back up to 100 categories. Do you have any feelings about that? There are two schools of thought. One is “The more awards we give, the more artists we make happy.” The other is it cheapens the value of winning a Grammy. I think one reason the Oscars mean so much is they’re damn hard to get: There are just 24 categories. So, you can look at it from two perspectives. Where do you come down?

Well, if you had to guess, Paul, where would you think I came down?

More the better.

Paul knows me so well. Damn.

I do have mixed feelings about it, because I do believe that our role is to celebrate music, all types of music, and there’s so many more people making music, and so many different styles of music being created, and so much more music being consumed. So, in some regards, I can understand the swelling of the number of categories, but conversely, we want it to continue to be a special award. It’s still peer-to-peer, which makes it very unique, and there is something to making sure it’s remaining exclusive. So, finding just the right sweet spot is something.

You’re just months away from your first show on ABC, Disney+ and Hulu. Will a casual viewer be able to see a difference, other than it’s on a different channel? Will it have a different look, a different style or voice, or will it be pretty much the same show we’re used to?

I think you’re going to see something new, refreshed. Obviously, there’ll be a new host, there’ll be a new look. But what you’ll continue to see and what will be a holdover from years past is incredible performances, excellence on the stage, performances that you won’t see anywhere else.

Can you be more specific about the show being “refreshed”? That’s intriguing, but I don’t quite know what you mean.

I do that on purpose, Paul. Let me think. There’ll also be a lot of things that will happen before the Grammy telecast that are exciting, and it’s been really fun working with Disney, and they’ve been great partners already – Disney, ABC, because we’re able to tell our story in new ways. We had a big moment at D23 this year [a Disney fan event in Anaheim, Calif. in August, where Mason moderated a panel of Grammy-winning composers who had worked on Disney projects]. We worked on the America 250 special [24-hour programming on July 3-4 celebrating America’s 250th birthday that ran across ABC, Disney+, Hulu and affiliated networks]. There’s going to be Grammy night on Dancing with the Stars, and so there’s so many other things that are going to be leading up to the Grammy telecast, and then on the telecast itself.

I know a lot of award shows have moved, especially in recent years, but you had a great long run with CBS. When did you start thinking of moving the show?

I started thinking about it when I first took the role — and it wasn’t necessarily about moving as much as it was: What does the next media rights deal look like? And it was, I’ve been here, what, seven years? I can’t believe it. But we signed our deal with ABC Disney two years ago, so a few years prior to that, when I came in, I saw on the horizon there was going to be a negotiation that took place during my time here. We took a lot of steps to try and put ourselves in the best position to enable us to do a deal that would allow us to showcase the awards and the music community, and so it was an effort that was ongoing.

When we started looking for a new deal two years ago, we knew we wanted to reach as many people as we could with our telecast. So that meant having somebody with a strong streaming platform as well as a linear television network. So there were a few people that fit into that category, and we knew we wanted somebody who was creator first and who was excited about music and our community of creators. So it just made a lot of sense to align with Disney with their global reach, their digital and traditional footprint.

Anything we didn’t touch on that you want to add?

I would love the opportunity to talk about the importance of voting because your article comes out at a key time for us. The first round of voting [opens on Monday]. I want to make sure people understand how important it is as our membership grows and becomes more and more relevant that they do their duty that we ask of them, which is to listen to the music, be very intentional, and fill out the ballot because we want to get the nominations right. We want to celebrate the music that is right for the year, so we need them to show up and vote.

It’s like in government. If you don’t vote, you have no right to complain.

Well, yeah, I wouldn’t probably put it that way for our people, but I would say we need your help, and we would ask for your help to listen to the music and vote for the things that you think are excellent.