Five Reggae Pioneers For 51st Grammy Awards

The 51st Grammy Award Nominations were announced earlier this week, and here are the nominations in the reggae category:

• Burning Spear - Jah Is Real
• Elephant Man - Let’s Get Physical
• Heavy D - Vibes
• Lee “Scratch” Perry - Repentance
• Shaggy - Intoxication
• Sly & Robbie - Amazing

Local industry insiders have drawn their two contenders, Lee Scratch Perry’s “Repentance”, and Sly & Robbie’s “Amazing”. The scales have been tipped towards Perry’s 54th studio album which has received rave reviews internationally, and has caught the ears of elite publications such as Scissors, Rolling Stone, New York Times, and Spin Magazine.

The 51st Annual Grammy Awards will take place on February 8, 2009. It will be broadcast on CBS in the United States at 8PM EST. Nominations are to be announced on December 3, 2008. For the sixth year in a row, the ceremony will be held in the Staples Center.

To be eligible for an award a recording must have been commercially released between October 1, 2007 and September 30, 2008. This is for all recordings released in the 2008 recording year. After the nominees are announced on December 4, 2008 final voting ballots will be sent to the academy members.

This is when they will vote for one of the nominees to win the award. Each category has five nominees. More than five is the result of a tie in the nominating process. Members are allowed to vote in the General field and up to nine other fields on their final voting ballots.

All ballots are tabulated by the independent accounting firm Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu. There are about 7,000 people who vote in the nominating and final voting process. These people are artists, producers, engineers, mixers and mastering engineers.

Academy members are to vote based upon quality alone. They are not to be influenced by mass sales or personal friendships. The acceptance of gifts is prohibited and can result in termination of membership.


The Reggae News Agency

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