--- title: Recording Academy Adds 900 New Members for Grammy Diversity description: The Recording Academy has invited 900 new members as part of an initiative to increase diversity and inclusivity. canonical: https://time.com/5415630/grammys-new-members/ author: Cady Lang article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-10-04T17:30:11.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:55:16.895Z og:title: Recording Academy Invites 900 New Members in Diversity Effort og:description: It's part of the Task Force on Diversity & Inclusion og:url: https://time.com/5415630/grammys-new-members/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Recording Academy Invites 900 New Members in Diversity Effort twitter:description: It's part of the Task Force on Diversity & Inclusion twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Recording Academy Invites 900 New Members in Effort to Make Grammys More Inclusive > Sponsored content. 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Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically.  by [Cady Lang](https://time.com/author/cady-lang/)  ## Cady Lang Oct 4, 2018 5:30 PM UTC  by [Cady Lang](https://time.com/author/cady-lang/)  ## Cady Lang Oct 4, 2018 5:30 PM UTC The [Recording Academy](http://time.com/5119499/white-rose-grammys-red-carpet/) has invited 900 new music creators to be voting members in an effort to [increase diversity at the Grammys](http://time.com/4671779/grammys-president-no-race-problem/), the first endeavor from the Academy’s newly created Task Force on Diversity & Inclusion. In an interview with [_Billboard_](https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/8478236/recording-academy-invites-900-new-voting-members-task-force), Task Force Chair Tina Tchen (a former chief of staff to First Lady Michelle Obama) explained that these 900 invitees, all vocalists, songwriters, instrumentalists, producers, and engineers who are female and/or people of color and/or under the age of 39, are a pre-qualified to vote by the Recording Academy as part of immediate action to make this awards season more inclusive. “Part of the objective here is to ask people to join us, to be part of the change \[to\] diversify the Academy and the industry as a whole,” Tchen said. “One of the ways to do that is to become a member, become active, become a part of who makes the decision about the Grammy Awards and we are really hoping that will spur more folks than the 900 to join.” Those invited to join the Academy will be able to vote for the 2019 Grammy Awards as long as they join by November 15\. The Task Force has also put work into diversifying their 16 Nominations Review Committees; this year, the demographics of the committees is 51% female and 48% people of color, as opposed to last year, when the committees were 28% female and 37% people of color. The Recording Academy’s Task Force was created in February following Grammys president and CEO Neil Portnow’s [comment that women need to “step up”](http://time.com/5122944/grammy-awards-women-men-step-up/) to be successful in the music industry, following the 2018 Grammy Awards, where only [one woman received a major award](http://time.com/5122993/grammys-so-male-reactions/) (Alessia Cara for Best New Artist) during the televised ceremony. Ahead of the awards show, USC’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative released [“Inclusion in the Recording Studio,”](http://assets.uscannenberg.org/docs/inclusion-in-the-recording-studio.pdf) a report that highlighted the extreme gender disparity, especially for women of color, in the music industry. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5415630/grammys-new-members/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5415630/grammys-new-members/"},"headline":"Recording Academy Invites 900 New Members in Effort to Make Grammys More Inclusive","datePublished":"2018-10-04T17:30:11.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:55:16.895Z","description":"It's part of the Task Force on Diversity & Inclusion","url":"https://time.com/5415630/grammys-new-members/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Music"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Cady Lang","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/cady-lang/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5415630/grammys-new-members/","name":"Recording Academy Invites 900 New Members in Effort to Make Grammys More Inclusive"}}]}] ```