Lupita Infante Among 2700+ New Members Diversifying The Recording Academy
Regional Mexican star Lupita Infante is among the 2,710 new members that were invited to join the Recording Academy this year. The institution that hosts the Grammys every year wanted to diversify the membership who votes for the awards. Among the new invitees, 13 percent identified as Latino or Hispanic.
In 2018, the Recording Academy started taking initiatives to diversify the membership pool.
In 2018, to better diversify the membership pool, the Recording Academy started allowing for industry recommendations and peer review when inviting new members. Lupita Infante, the Mexican-American granddaughter of Pedro Infante, represents two underrepresented groups: regional Mexican music and the women in the genre.
“As a new member of the Recording Academy, I want to be an advocate for my music genre and for artists, especially female artists,” Infante said in a statement. “It’s such a powerful time for women to rise up in our music community and I want to be a part of that movement. Seeing myself become a member means progress for our genre and for the women within regional Mexican music.”
More than half of the new members invited this year come from underrepresented groups.
Among the 2,710 new members invited to join the Recording Academy, 48 percent are women. When broken down further, 32 percent identified as Black or African-American, 13 percent as Latino or Hispanic, 4 percent as Asian or Pacific Islander, and 6 percent as other (non-white). Fifty-five percent of the new class come from underrepresented groups.
Many Latina music industry professionals were also invited to join the Recording Academy.
Not only were artists among the new invitees, but so were professionals in the music industry. The new class includes many Latinas from the PR field. There’s Imagine It Media’s Romina Magorno-Ayala, who represents Anitta, Tainy, and Myke Towers, and The Nieman Group’s Jennifer Nieman, who represents Maluma, Prince Royce, Becky G, and Danna Paola.
Also invited were Guerrera Marketing & PR’s Loren Medina, who represents Kali Uchis and Omar Apollo, The Brand Phoenix’s Janice Torres, and ARRO Media’s Cristina Arcay. Latin Plug’s founder Mauricio Vega, who is helping amplify Latinos to the digital billboards in Times Square, was invited to join as well.
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