Brit Awards Announce Voting System Shakeup After #BritsSoWhite

Last year's #BritsSoWhite campaign caused such a stir that the Chairman of the Brits invited over 700 music industry figures.

View this video on YouTube

youtu.be

Last year, as we all know, the BRIT Awards came under heavy fire after its 2015 ceremony completely shunned black artists and grime was completely absent, despite dominating the charts and the country's cultural conversation. Many were outraged and countless artists and industry figures made their anger known, primarily through the hugely successful #BritsSoWhite campaign.

Soul singer Laura Mvula boycotted the awards, saying: "I guess the problem for me is knowing that there are young black kids growing up feeling that they're not acknowledged in society, in media and in mainstream music." Besides the #BritsSoWhite campaign, Kano created his own Instagram #HoodBRITs and Stormzy responded with his "One Take Freestyle", which had lines like: "None of my Gs nominated for Brits / Are you taking the piss? / Embarrassing / Last year they told the mandem that to be nominated you've gotta go on UK charts / So what do we do? We chart / Don't come here with your lies / Don't start."

The campaign itself proved hugely successful. BPI Chairman Ged Doherty, who met with Stormzy to discuss the issue, even admitted in The Guardian that "we have been slow to recognise that the processes behind the awards have become disconnected from this heritage of diversity." In other words, things are about to change. Those words proved not to be empty ones.

This year, 718 figures in the music industry were invited to join the voting membership. Typically, the annual influx of new voters usually hits around the 300 mark, but this year's new invitees equals 57% of the total Academy membership, bringing the gender split to 52% male and 48% female (it was 70/30 in 2016), with 17% of members being BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) up from 15% in 2016. The focus is now on the 2017 Brits to see if this feeds into a more accurate representation of UK culture at the ceremony.

 

Latest in Music