Photo: WENN
BRIT Awards chairman Ged Doherty has pledged to tackle the lack of diversity in nominees, after this year's event was criticised for being overwhelmingly white.
2016 seems to have marked a turning point for awards show diversity - or lack thereof. Though people of colour have long been under-represented across the arts when it comes to awards nominations, this year the general population has begun to sit up and take notice.
Following on from the controversy over the Academy Awards - for which ever single acting nominee was white - the BRIT Awards were met with similar criticism, particularly over the absence of grime artists among the nominees.
Musicians such as Marina & The Diamonds, Laura Mvula, Stormzy and Lily Allen spoke out against the overwhelmingly white list of nominees.
Now, the awards' chairman Ged Doherty has written an open letter for The Guardian, describing the controversy as "an elephant in the room." He said, "We are therefore surveying [the voting academy's] makeup, which, I suspect, is largely white and with a bias towards older men. This does not mean that there is an underlying prejudice at play, but the unintended consequence is that emerging genres of music may not be properly recognised."
He added, "There is a second issue. Currently, to be nominated you must have achieved Top 40 success – but we must now go further. There are performers, including grime artists, who may not have achieved major chart success but who have attracted large followings, including through social media.
"This level of engagement is at present not part of Brits eligibility and this, perhaps more than any other factor, has caused the nominations to be seen as unrepresentative by some."
Read Ged Doherty's full letter on the BRIT Awards' lack of diversity here.
