After seeing LGBTQ+ artists dominate the 2024 Grammy Awards, Ryan Butler — the Recording Academy's vice president of diversity, equity and inclusion — says he's finally seeing his team's hard work pay off. “After these wins, I'm confident we did the work we needed to do,” he says Advertising sign.
That work, over the past two and a half years, has included building the Academy's DREAM Initiative (Diversity Reimagined by Engaging All Musicmakers). Through the new network, Butler's DE&I team has created a series of what it calls “member resource groups” to help “create dialogue and a deeper understanding of what support looks like” for underrepresented groups — including women, the black community and many others. Now, with their newest group, the Recording Academy is looking at what they can do to help the LGBTQ+ community.
During Grammy Week, the Recording Academy officially launched Academy Proud, their latest member resource group aimed at increasing representation and visibility among their constituency. In partnership with LGBTQ advocacy organization GLAAD and queer entertainment organization OUTLOUD, Academy Proud officially launched during a Grammy House event on Saturday, February 3rd.
So how will Academy Proud actively benefit the LGBTQ+ music community? Below, Advertising sign chats with Butler about the new initiative, his goals for advancing representation at the Academy, and the work that needs to be done for underrepresented communities at the Grammys.
Tell me a little bit about how this initiative started — when did the idea first come up and when did you decide to work with GLAAD and OUTLOUD here?
It was on my mind for about two and a half years when we first started working with GLAAD. I wanted to create a network of member resource groups — most companies have ERGs (employee resource groups), but we're so focused on members, I wanted to be a little innovative in this space and create MRGs. So I created this network called the DREAM network, and in DREAM we have eight priority demographics, and we proceeded to create MRGs around each of those demographics. So we have Women in the Mix, the Black Music Collective, Grammys Next Gen, Gold Music Alliance and now Academy Proud. We also have an MRG for the Latino community, for Indigenous peoples, and for disability and accessibility.
For our readers, can you explain how a member resource group works for Academy membership? What does an MRG provide directly to members?
At the highest level, it is the motivational representation. This is a way to really build a baseline of how many of our members identify as LGBTQ+, and then [that] helps us figure out what we can do to support that membership, to increase representation in that membership. I think inclusion and diversity are often action items — it's very easy to invite people and include them — but first you really have to create a sense of belonging. So what the member resource groups do is create a sense of belonging and give someone who is maybe curious about the Grammys and who might have joined us at a Grammy House event, to know and understand that the Academy Recording can be their home.
Dr. David Jones and Ryan Butler on February 3, 2024 in Los Angeles.
Exclusive Nicole/Getty Images for The Recording Academy
So what specific initiatives do you see Academy Proud taking in the coming months or years to actively engage a more diverse LGBTQ+ member base?
So, I think showcasing what we've done this Grammy Week is going to be great for people who might be outside of the Academy and want to be a part of it or are deciding whether they can be a part of it. The visibility of officially activating Grammy Week is huge — but I really want to make sure we understand what support looks like for the queer community. It will be different for every community. I identify as black, gay. I know we often talk about intersectionality, but for me it is also indivisible. I'm always black, I'm always gay, and I don't live my life in pieces. It's great for us to have that dialogue and understand how the queer community feels within the music community and what we as an Academy can do to support the community year-round. So whether it's panels, discussions, surveys, gatherings, I want it to be driven by the interest of the community itself.
We could make a pretty deck and say “this is what we're going to do”, but that might not be what the community needs. It's really important for us to listen and really have a deep understanding of what support looks like. What's stopping you from becoming a member of the Recording Academy, and if you've joined, what's stopping you from being an active member? What obstacles do you see in becoming an elected leader? That's really how we change — it's about representation on our board, in our elected positions, as our chapter presidents.
I know you're still in the early stages of the initiative here, but in these early stages, has there been any specific feedback that provides a solid foundation of where to start?
I think recognition is where we really needed to start. In the queer community, we understand that we're the innovators, we understand that we're at the forefront of helping to curate and nurture what's happening across culture. I think the first step was the Recording Academy recognizing that and recognizing the contribution and impact that the queer community has in music and other cultural areas. music, fashion, cinema, etc. To really acknowledge that, I don't think there are many organizations that really support the fact that, but for the contributions of the queer community, we wouldn't be where we are today.
The launch of the initiative coincided with this year's ceremony, which marked several historic victories for the LGBTQ+ community — in addition to having a wide range of LGBTQ candidates, three of the Big Four winners were queer women. To what do you attribute this rise in queer representation at the Grammys?
It's really because of the hard work we've done in all our disciplines. Our philosophy goes from the inside out — we're just now starting to see the “out” part, but the project has been in the works for years. You really have to build a place where someone feels like they belong. Yes, we could have started Academy Proud two years ago, but we wanted to make sure the LGBTQ community felt like they belonged at the Academy. From here, we just keep moving forward and increasing representation on our national board and in our programming, and making sure that representation isn't just isolated to the month of June.
With these bigger strides, there are also areas where representation still falls short – there has been a notable lack of trans and non-binary candidates in recent years, even as the number of LGBTQ+ candidates has been increasing year on year.
We can never celebrate too soon, and there's still a lot of work to be done, but I feel like we're in a much better place now. When DE&I is under attack in so many places, I'm proud and honored to know that the Recording Academy remains steadfast in its support, and it's still part of our values, and we understand how much better we are when we have everyone's input.
This is especially true as the political right continues to push anti-LGBTQ bills and laws, including laws aimed at limiting artists' rights to free speech and expression. How do you see combating these limitations from the perspective of providing DE&I resources for Academy members?
It's about the creators and it's about being there 365 days a year. We're known for Music's Biggest Night and the awards show that we do, but we work the rest of the year, not just Grammy night. Whether it's our advocacy and public policy team in Washington, or the DEI team, the Academy protects and advocates on behalf of all creators. Whenever there's a creator in a space that's facing an obstacle, it's our job to make sure we remove that obstacle and allow that creator to be their full self.
I want to go back to talking about the trans community, though, because they are the ones directly affected by this legislation. With this lack of visibility in the music industry in general, including the Grammys, how does this initiative specifically aim to elevate the voices of not only trans and non-binary artists, but also trans and non-binary workers across the industry?
This project isn't just isolated to Academy Proud – it's also part of Women in the Mix, where we've made a very conscious decision not to use terms like 'female-identified'. We're here for all women — if you're a woman, you're a woman. We published the Women in the Mix study and it was the first study to survey people of different genders in the industry. Now, we have a basis for it, and recommendations around it. It's really about that intersection and overlap between our member resource groups. We are fully committed to uplifting the trans community, both through Academy Proud and Women in the Mix.
