The Recording Academy, which presents the Grammy Awards, announced Thursday that it has invited 900 new voting members in an effort to increase diversity. This is the first step the Academy has taken towards diversifying the Grammys since forming a diversity and inclusion task force this past May. All 900 invitees, who were pre-qualified to vote by the Recording Academy, are female and/or people of color and/or under 39. Tina Tchen, the task force chair, said, “We hope to work with the Academy in the coming months to do it again next year in a more organized way, but we wanted to do [it] right away to affect this year’s awards season.” Invitees who join by November 15 are eligible to vote for February 10’s 61st Annual Grammy Awards.
