Change Comes Thanks to FAI’s Membership and Team of Advocates
Kansas City, MO (June 16, 2026) – On today’s announcement by the Recording Academy that it is adding a Best Traditional Folk Album category to the 2027 GRAMMY Awards, Folk Alliance International (FAI) shares its years-long efforts to work with the Academy to reinstate the category and applauds the Academy on this move. FAI — a 501(c)3 and the foremost global nonprofit for folk music — surveyed the folk music community and assembled an impressive team to push for this change.
The reinstated category is as follows:
Best Traditional Folk Album
This Category recognizes excellence in albums of traditional folk recordings. Awards are presented to artist(s), producer(s), engineer(s)/mixer(s), and songwriter(s) of new songs, if other than artist(s), of greater than 50 percent playing time on the album.
With the addition of this new category, the Best Folk Album Category has been revised and renamed Best Contemporary Folk Album.
For the 2027 GRAMMY Awards, FAI will submit for free the traditional albums in the first submission deadline for its members. FAI will also submit Best Contemporary Folk Album for the GRAMMY submission price for FAI members.
From Folk Alliance International’s proposal to the Recording Academy: “Instituting Traditional and Contemporary Folk awards categories will not only address a major representation and credibility gap, but will also begin to address the stereotype that the folk genre is exclusively Eurocentric. Traditional Folk as a genre is one of rich cultural diversity and goes beyond any one culture… Many of the entries for ‘Best Traditional Folk Album’ would also come from a large population of artists who do not currently submit their music to the Recording Academy, in part because they do not feel their music is currently represented or celebrated by the GRAMMY Awards.”
Folk Alliance International Executive Director Jennifer Roe said, “We are grateful to the Recording Academy for recognizing the communities that make traditional folk music. In a moment when music fans are craving connection to traditions and roots, we are also thankful to our membership for joining this call. The reinstated category will change the lives of future nominees and shine a light on vital communities, many of which are made up of marginalized people.”
Folk Alliance International assembled an impressive team of advocates for this effort that spent many hours preparing the proposal, including Ayappa Biddanda (Shiva Sounds); Mariah Czap (Exceleration Music); Cathy Fink (artist); Anna Frick (Ally Sound); Brad Kolodner (artist); Art Menius (radio promoter and DJ); Jennifer Roe (FAI Executive Director); Ashley Shabankareh (President of the FAI Board of Directors as well as Trombone Shorty Foundation); MarySue Twohy (SIRIUS XM); and Reid Wick (The Recording Academy). The proposal included support from 425 members of the folk music community, including 109 Recording Academy members, including such notables as Rhiannon Giddens, Anna Canoni (Woody Guthrie Foundation), Dom Flemons, Jed Hilly (The Americana Music Association), Kimberly Horton (The Blues Foundation), Anais Mitchell, John Smith (Smithsonian Folkways Recordings),
According to the Recording Academy, this category recognizes excellence in albums of traditional folk recordings. Traditional folk includes folk recordings with folk song structures, harmonic structures, and rhythms, including traditional folk instruments such as piano, harmonica, traditional woodwind, strings, and percussion from around the world. It also includes song types such as old time, a capella, work songs, shanty, protest, call and response, ballad, and other traditional folk song structures created in and/or passed through community-rooted tradition distinct from Regional Roots. Awards are presented to artists, producers, engineers/mixers, and songwriters of new songs (if other than the artists) who are credited with more than 50% of the album’s playing time.
Grammys CEO Harvey Mason, Jr. said, ”2027 is going to be an amazing year for the Grammy Awards, and one that reflects the extraordinary growth we’re seeing across music. The changes advanced by our Recording Academy members speak to the breadth of today’s music industry and the many genres, crafts and creators shaping it. We’re excited to see these updates come to life in the year ahead as we celebrate the music people who are driving music forward.”
About Folk Alliance International
Founded in 1989, and governed by a 21-member board of directors, Folk Alliance International (FAI) is the world’s largest membership organization for the folk music industry and community. Its mission is to serve, strengthen, and engage the global folk music community through preservation, presentation, and promotion.
FAI values diversity, equity, inclusion, and access, is committed to gender parity in all its programming, celebrates multiple languages and cultures, and actively welcomes participation from marginalized, disenfranchised, and underrepresented communities.
FAI defines folk broadly as “the music of the people” (reflective of any community they are from), and programs a diverse array of sub-genres including, but not limited to Appalachian, Americana, Blues, Bluegrass, Celtic, Cajun, Global Roots, Hip-Hop, Old-Time, Singer-Songwriter, Spoken Word, Traditional, Zydeco, and various fusions.
