Last year's children's song Grammy nominees were all white—but that's changed in 2022
This year, all of the nominees in the Grammy Awards' children's music category are musicians of color. They sing about marching for social justice, uplift cultures, and celebrate the diversity of today's family music: jazz, hip hop, reggae, soul, funk, R&B, Latin American rhythms, and music with Indian tones.
It's a very different slate from last year's all-white list. Grammy-nominated reggae artist Aaron Nigel Smith says the Recording Academy's choices were out of touch.
"It was shocking to see that, especially during the year of the Black Lives Matter movement and George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, and people standing up for human rights and justice," says Smith. "To see that in this music space there was no representation, no acknowledgment, and so we protested."
In 2020, Smith and several other nominees this year formed the coalition Family Music Forward, to amplify Black voices in children's music. Last year, they challenged the Recording Academy to include more artists of color. And they urged voting members to consider more diverse music for families.
"Children's music isn't an even a genre per se, it's an audience," notes
