Grammy’s to Drop the Word ‘Urban’ from Genre Categories
The Recording Academy [The Grammy’s] has just announced that it will remove the term “urban” from all of their genre categories except for one. Other companies, such as Republic Records, Warner Music Group, and iHeartMedia have all vowed to do the same.
“As with a lot of our history, the original connotation of the term urban was not deemed negative,” however, it “developed into a generalization of Black people in many sectors of the music industry, including employees and music by Black artists.” – Republic Records
These changes come in the wake of Tyler the Creator’s win at this year’s Grammy ceremony [Best Rap Album]. “It sucks that whenever we — and I mean guys that look like me — do anything that’s genre-bending or anything, they also put it in a rap or urban category. I don’t like that urban word. It’s just politically correct way to say the N-word to me.” – Tyler the Creator
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