The Recording Academy’s Len Brown plays an important role supporting the growth of reggae

Courtesy of the Recording Academy® / Photo by Getty Images © 2023.

Daily Reggae connected with The Recording Academy’s Len Brown to learn about his role empowering artists across genres including the reggae community. Brown shared an important reminder to the community to ensure they vote for the First Round of the 2024 GRAMMY Awards by October 20.

Hey Len! It’s amazing to have the opportunity to interview you. We are big fans of The Recording Academy and GRAMMY Awards! It’s so cool that you manage Hip-Hop, R&B and Reggae at The Recording Academy. What are some of the different projects that you balance in your day job and do each of the genres have their own unique opportunities and challenges?

Thank you! It's a pleasure to be interviewed by Daily Reggae. In my role overseeing Hip-Hop, R&B, and Reggae here, I take on various roles and responsibilities. From constantly engaging with artists and music industry executives to keeping a finger on the pulse of new releases, emerging artists and industry shifts, it can be demanding, but it's a challenge I embrace. Each aspect of this multifaceted role brings its own unique opportunities and hurdles, making it a wonderfully rewarding journey.

The reggae music genre is so powerful and reggae can truly be heard around the world! How do you work with artists in the reggae community year round and does all The Recording Academy’s work within reggae funnel into the GRAMMYs?

My main focus remains on educating artists and creators about our Awards process along with the many opportunities and resources available through the Recording Academy. I consistently encourage Reggae music creators and those associated to become members of the Academy because as experts in their craft, their voices and votes are so important in recognizing and honoring the best in music for the genre. The more participation we get from our members, the stronger and more impactful this organization becomes for the entire music community.

With the First Round of voting currently underway until the Oct. 20 deadline, it’s important that our current Recording Academy members know how vital their participation is as it’s what makes this peer-driven award so coveted and why voter engagement is so critical in helping us determine this year’s nominees.

What are some actions that you’d love to see reggae artists, bands, and other people in the genre take to make their voices heard even more loudly this year and in the future of the GRAMMYs?

As I mentioned earlier, I always want to see more reggae artists, and artists in general, make their voices heard by voting in this first round to determine the 66th GRAMMY nominees before the voting closes on Oct. 20!

For everyone else, from the executives down, joining to become a member of the Recording Academy is something that will help strengthen the connection between the reggae community and us. The opportunity to be a part of the Academy's decision-making processes and connect with our community of creators who want to see the same changes as you.

It’s Friday afternoon, and things are starting to slow down ahead of the weekend. What are one or two reggae artists that you love listening to these days?!

There’s so many artists on the dancehall and roots side that I can lose count trying to name them all! Because of this I feel like reggae is in a good spot with the amount of talent we have coming up.

One trend we definitely see a lot of at Daily Reggae (and we think it’s really cool) is the cross-genre pollination of reggae with other genres (i.e. hip hop, rock, even country)! We’d love your thoughts on the new boundaries artists are pushing and do you think we could ever see new GRAMMY categories arising in the future?

As Jamaicans, we’re a welcoming people so it’s no surprise that this same mentality is infused with our music. With many of today’s artists old and new willing to experiment with the sound, you can see how other genres have been incorporated to make reggae as robust as ever. The lines are blurred and artists are creating more freely; we at the Academy support this growth and will continue to recognize the great music and creatives behind it.