Subj: Reggae and the Grammys -Please read Date: 7/6/00 9:12:46 AM Pacific Daylight Time From: remy@nytimes.com (Remy Gerstein) I would like to tell you about something very important that we have become involved in recently, that I think will be of interest many of you. Thanks to Sister Carol and Dean of Black Cinderella Productions, I recently attended a meeting of a newly forming group of Reggae and World Music professionals at the offices of NARAS, the governing body of the Grammy Awards. In the course of the meetings, it became clear to me that I was not alone in my frustrations with the lack of representation and believable competition in the Grammy process. One weakness, we found, was the lack of real, qualified, reggae professionals involved as actual voting members of the Academy. Ras Rojah can probably add a good deal of insite here, but the conclusion that we came to as a group was that the way for us to have the biggest impact on this problem is to actively recruit new voting members to the Academy. We are describing ourselves and our mission as follows: As active and concerned music industry professionals, we have come together to form a committee to discuss the important issues involving reggae and world music, on a local and national level. We decided that one of our first goals is to expand the membership of NARAS with knowledgeable reggae and world music members who will participate in the Grammy voting process. The immediate impact could be felt as early as next year's Grammy's because there can be a better selection of titles submitted for nominations and a more well rounded group of voting members. There are certain criteria for who can become a voting member of the academy, which are described at http://www.grammy.com/who/join/index.html , but the primary requirement is CREDITED participation on (performing, producing, etc) six comercially released tracks. I would like to encourage anyone who meets these criteria to very seriously consider joining the Academy, and make their voices heard in the mainstream music world. I will keep you up to date on what progrees we make as a group and more details of what we will be focusing on, but I felt that this is an important step in pushing reggae onto a more prominent stage in the mainstream world, that everyone on the forum would be interested in. For anyone in the New York area, we will be holding a recruiting drive on two dates over the summer at the Central Park summerstage concerts. If anyone is interested, please contact me directly, I can give you details. Peace, and respect, -remy Remy Gerstein remy@easystar.com V.P. for Promotions EASY STAR RECORDS, INC. 212-736-2160(v/f) P.O. Box 602 New York, NY, 10018 http://www.easystar.com RAW # 723 ============================================================================