Grammys Release Inclusion Rider for 2022 Show

The Grammy Awards have released an eight-page inclusion rider for the 2022 show. Read the whole thing here, or a synopsis below.

The inclusion rider for the upcoming Grammy Awards consists of “four key elements,” according to its co-author Kalpana Kotagal. As laid out by the civil rights attorney, those elements are: “a commitment to deepening and diversifying hiring pools, benchmarks and targets for hiring, the collection and analysis of applicant and hiring data, and strict accountability measures.”

“By committing to use the Inclusion Rider for its 2022 production, the Grammy Awards is not only ensuring a more equitable and diverse hiring process, it is also setting an important standard for inclusivity and representation at award shows moving forward,” Kotagal said in a statement accompanying Tuesday’s rider release.

In addition to Kotagal, who is a partner at Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, the Grammys 2022 inclusion rider was co-written by Fanshen Cox (production and development executive, Pearl Street Films) and contributors Valeisha Butterfield Jones (co-president, Recording Academy) and Allie-Ryan Butler (founding director, Warner Music | Blavatnik Center for Music Business at Howard University).

The Grammys are the first major awards show to publicly commit to using an inclusion rider. The announcement of the rider was made in August as part of a partnership between the Recording Academy and Color of Change.

An inclusion rider is a contract provision that sets forth a process for hiring and casting to expand and diversify the candidate pool, encourages hiring qualified cast and crew who have been traditionally underrepresented in productions, tracks progress and creates accountability.

“I am proud that the Academy is leading the charge in releasing an Inclusion Rider for the music community that counters systematic bias,” Harvey Mason Jr., CEO of the Recording Academy, said Tuesday morning. “We were proud to work with a very diverse crew last year for the Grammy Awards, and this is the culmination of a years-long effort to create a rider for the production of the Grammys. But this is only the beginning. We are committed to putting in the real work required to help create a pipeline of diverse talent and drastically change representation.”

“With the Inclusion Rider, Color Of Change and the Recording Academy are working to change the rules that have enabled systemic discrimination in the music business for far too long,” Rashad Robinson, president of Color Of Change, added. “The Inclusion Rider is a concrete accountability mechanism aimed at breaking through an endless stream of empty commitments. It will ensure that Black people finally gain the authority in the industry that matches their essential contributions to it. An initiative of #ChangeMusic, the Inclusion Rider changes the rules of the industry’s hiring and management practices to open up opportunities for work and promotion that have long been denied.”

The 2022 Grammys are scheduled for Jan. 31. The awards show airs on CBS.