On: The 2016 Grammy Nominees and Recognizing Our Own

Grammys award season is upon us and I think this is a great time to ask which narratives are we following this Grammy season?

It’s the time of year where we rehash the virtues (or lack thereof) of those nominated. We repost our think pieces about why an artist should not have been snubbed or is deservedly overly lauded. We complain about the structure of the Grammys themselves. We question their continuing relevance even as we argue for more genre and racial inclusion among its awardees and performers.

These are all worthy questions that wrestle with the reality that the most prestigious music award ceremony is not immune from the social and racial upon which our larger society is built.

But I’d like to shift our focus a little because there are those who work tirelessly to acknowledge artists who, in some cases already have Grammys, but aren’t at the heart of the business of the Grammy Awards ceremony (read: the don’t appeal to the target market of the telecast 18-34 year old white audiences).

This morning the National Academy for Recording Arts and Sciences released their exhaustive list of 2016 Grammy nominees. But tonight, SoulTracks.com, a website wholly dedicated to the best of independent soul music, will host its annual Soul Tracks Readers’ Choice Awards. They will air on several internet radio stations and be hosted by Jodine Dorce (@JodinesCorner). Every year Soul Tracks celebrates incredibly talented soul musicians who continue to work hard and create beautiful music –  whether they’re within the Grammys main purview or not.

My suggestion isn’t that we ignore the Grammys. We don’t have to choose between a pop culture phenomenon such as the Grammys or an important upstart like Soul Tracks. My hope is that we, those in the business of commenting about these moments, can also shed some shine on the organizations that consistently make the artists that we feel are ignored on main stages, like the Grammys, the center of their work. If we don’t do that, we run the risk of unintentionally reaffirming the often-exclusionary narrative that the Grammys create.

While the Grammys have a necessarily unwieldy 83 categories to navigate, the SoulTracks Readers’ Choice Awards are able to cut directly to the heart of the music.

This year’s nominees are:

Album of the Year

Brandon Williams: XII

Kenny Lattimore: Anatomy of a Love Song

Lizz Wright: Freedom & Surrender

Terri Lyne Carrington: The Mosaic Project: Love and Soul

Tyrese: Black Rose

Song of Year

Brian Owens and Nao Yoshioka: “Love, Love”

Johnny Gill: “Game Changer”

Phil Perry: “A Better Man”

Raheem DeVaughn: “When You Love Somebody”

Tyrese: “Shame”

Male Vocalist of the Year

Kenny Lattimore

Phil Perry

Raheem DeVaughn

Tyrese

Will Downing

Female Vocalist of the Year

Conya Doss

Lizz Wright

Maysa

Syleena Johnson

Teedra Moses

Duo or Group of the Year

Alabama Shakes

ConFunkShun

Naturally 7

The Foreign Exchange

The Internet

New Artist of the Year

Brandon Williams

Dominique Toney

Kenya

NaoYoshioka

Tahira Memory

Lifetime Achievement Award

Roy Ayers

The SoulTracks Readers’ Choice Awards will air on SoulTracks.com tonight at 8pm.

But as I mentioned, we don’t have to ignore the Grammys and the many deserving musicians who are nominated. For all of its issues, the validation that the Grammys represent can give musicians an economic boost and help artists expand their audiences. In an attention-based economy, these are major wins.

Unsurprisingly to most, rapper Kendrick Lamar deservedly leads the pack with 11 nominations and that now makes him the most nominated hip hop artist in Grammy history (formerly Eminem held that distinction).

Other Black and African American Grammy nominees across a broad range of categories include D’angelo, Alabama Shakes, Lalah Hathaway, Drake, Flying Lotus, The Internet, Jazmine Sullivan, Charlie Wilson, Lianne La Havas, Dorinda Clark-Cole, Karen Clark-Sheard, Snarky Puppy, Marcus Miller, Terence Blanchard, Andra Day, Kirk Whalum, Common, Fetty Wap, Kanye West, the Selma Soundtrack, What Happened to Miss Simone, Christian McBride, Jamison Ross, Cécile McLorin Salvant, Kirk Franklin, Arturo O’Farrill, Mavis Staples, Bettye LaVette, Shamekia Copeland, Rhiannon Giddens, Gilberto Gil, Tyrese, and Angelique Kidjo. (The full list of nominees is available here.)

So I’m going to do both. I’m going to celebrate powerful Black music that’s up for music’s most prestigious award and tune in to the Soul Tracks Readers’ Choice Awards to support spaces where the importance and relevance of soul music is never a question.