After singing out for unity and harmony on their latest record, Minnesota's family-friendly folk duo the Okee Dokee Brothers have asked Grammy Awards organizers to remove their name from the nominations list for best children's album due to what they see as a lack of inclusivity.
"We can't in good conscience benefit from a process that has –– both this year and historically –– so overlooked women, performers of color, and most especially Black performers," the Okee Dokees wrote in an open letter posted Wednesday addressed to the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences.
They were among three of the five acts up for this year's kids music award who signed the letter asking to be removed from the category, including two other white male acts, Dog on Fleas and Alastair Moock.
Only one woman, Joanie Leads, and no artists of color are included in the category this year, which the protesting nominees say is too often the case.
Citing work by the organization Family Music Forward to diversify the category, the letter claims that only 6% of children's-album nominees up until now have been Black or co-led by Black musicians, and only around 30% have been women or led by women. That's especially unacceptable in this case, the letter's signers say.
"These numbers would be disappointing in any category," they wrote. "In a genre whose performers are uniquely tasked with modeling fairness, kindness, and inclusion; in a country where more than half of all children are non-white; and after a year of national reckoning around race and gender –– the numbers are unacceptable."
Grammys representatives provided a statement to the Star Tribune in response to the letter.
"Fostering more opportunities for women and people of color in the music community is one of the Recording Academy's most urgent priorities," wrote Valeisha Butterfield Jones, the chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer for the Grammys organization. She cited the diversified roster of nominees in major categories this year and ongoing initiatives with the Black Music Collective and Color for Change.
