BRIT Awards change rules for 2024 after diversity row

nme.com:

BRIT Awards have announced that they will be tweaking their rules for the 2024 instalment, following a row over diversity.The structuring of the award ceremony faced criticism at the start of the year when it was revealed that no female artists had been shortlisted for the 2023 Best Artist award.

This came following the 2021 merging of the Best Male and Best Female categories.The winner of this year’s prize was pop icon Harry Styles, who also made a nod towards the perceived lack of fairness in the broader category – dedicating his speech to female artists including Rina Sawayama, Charli XCX, and Becky Hill, and acknowledging his “privilege”.Now, according to a new report by BBC News, it has been announced that the organisers of the BRITS will now increase the number of shortlisted artists for the Best Artist award.

This sees an expansion from five to 10 nominees for the 2024 edition, in the hopes of creating a more balanced field.The expanded shortlist will also apply to the Best International Artist category as of next year.As well as broadening the number of nominees, the organisers have also confirmed that they will be introducing a new award category, dedicated solely to the R&B genre.

This comes as the nominees from the R&B world were previously compiled into a broader Best Pop/R&B genre – meaning that they faced competition from some of the biggest mainstream pop stars including Sam Smith and Dua Lipa.Speaking to the outlet, the new restructuring of BRITS categories was supported by BBC 1Xtra’s DJ Ace, who said that “right now is such a great time for R&B,” and artists from the genre deserve a fairer chance at winning an award.Singer Mahalia – who contested the joined pop/R&B category by wearing a coat with the.