‘Women Need To Step Up’ says Grammy Chief In Tone Deaf Response To Music’s Gender Gap

[UPDATED] Only one women, Best New Artist Alessia Cara, took the stage to pick up an award during the televised portion of the 60th annual Grammy Awards. Overall, just 9.3% of total Grammy nominees 2013 – 2018 were woman. But in comments to Variety, Recording Academy president Neil Portnow seemed to suggest that women, rather than a male dominated industry, have to work harder to correct the discrepancy.“It has to begin with… women who have the creativity in their hearts and souls, who want to be musicians, who want to be engineers, producers, and want to be part of the industry on the executive level…," said Portnow. "[They need] to step up because I think they would be welcome."He also admitted, " I don’t have personal experience of those kinds of brick walls that you face but I think it’s upon us — us as an industry — to make the welcome mat very obvious, breeding opportunities for all people who want to be creative and paying it forward and creating that next generation of artists.”

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