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NEW YORK (AP) — Flashback to February. It’s the 2025 Grammys, and Beyoncé has made history. Not only was she finally awarded the top prize of album of the year, but she also became the first Black woman to win best country album, for “Cowboy Carter.” Recent changes by the Recording Academy have made it even more monumental: She might be the last person to ever win the award.

In June, the Academy announced that the Grammys’ country album title was splitting into two categories. A new award was created, traditional country album. The preexisting country album category has been redefined and is now contemporary country album, reflecting the genre’s ongoing sonic evolutions.

Here’s everything you need to know about the change — and what it could signify in the future.

From “Cowboy Carter” to now

Charles L. Hughes, Rhodes College professor and author of “Country Soul,” says Beyoncé’s victory was a welcomed surprise, despite being obviously worthy. That’s because her album inspired a larger conversation about reclamation, standing in opposition to the music industry’s rigid power structures and “indicated how significant this historical question remains of whether or not Black folks have equal access to success in a genre of music that bears such strong Black influences and has from the very beginning,” Hughes said.

He believes the decision to alter the country album categories was not in direct response to her win — “I think it is a more complicated story,” he says — but the timing might’ve been less than ideal, emboldening fans to view it as reactionary. He hopes the changes will open the category to more diversity of sounds and “whether this leads to a broader opening and opportunity for Black artists, especially Black women in country music,” he posits.

Francesca T. Royster, a DePaul University professor and author of “Black Country Music: Listening for Revolutions,” views Beyoncé’s victory as positively connected to this change. She wonders if artists — particularly artists of color, who never had their music recognized in country music categories, think of artists like “Millie Jackson or Candi Staton, Bobby Womack” — would now see their work recognized. “Having these two categories just allows for more experimentation and maybe less of a double standard,” she says, “in terms of artists who are often held to higher standards to conform to, or be recognizable as, meeting an idea about what country music is.”

“It makes sense that the Grammy categories for country would become a little bit more expansive,” she says, “because I think the music is more expansive and the audience is also more expansive than it’s ever been.”

Traditional vs. contemporary

According to the Recording Academy’s rule book, the traditional country category is defined by “country recordings that adhere to the more traditional sound structures of the country genre, including rhythm and singing style, lyrical content, as well as traditional country instrumentation.”

Those are: acoustic guitar, steel guitar, fiddle, banjo, mandolin, piano, electric guitar and live drums. This is also where subgenres like outlaw country, Western and Western swing would fit.

The contemporary country category description is a bit more conceptual. The rule book states that albums eligible in this category “utilize a stylistic intention, song structure, lyrical content, and/or musical presentation to create a sensibility that reflects the broad spectrum of contemporary country style and culture.”

The hope is that those titles are “relevant to the legacy of country music’s culture, while also engaging in more contemporary music forms.”

The questions Hughes poses: “Whose tradition are we talking about?” And how is “country music’s culture” defined?

“It’s almost tautology. ‘Well, it’s traditional country if it sounds like traditional country,’” he says.

In that reading, contemporary country could simply account for everything else.

Royster says both categories seem to “speak to an aesthetic as well as political agenda, many agendas.” To her, the traditional category would appeal to artists who believe that “this is a past form that needs to … continue to be recognized and respected.” Similarly, the contemporary category is “linked to the culture of country but is also expansive.”

“In both cases, there’s a kind of story behind the story.”

Adding a new genre category is not unique to country music. Consider a sister genre, R&B. In 1999, the Recording Academy also introduced a traditional category to the R&B field to spotlight artists who chose to hybridize the genre as well as those who prefer nostalgic structures.

It didn’t stay stagnant from there: In 2021, the Academy changed the best urban contemporary album category to best progressive R&B album, to spotlight those records that weave R&B with other genres.

In the traditional category, it is Charley Crockett’s “Dollar a Day,” Lukas Nelson’s “American Romance,” Willie Nelson’s “Oh What a Beautiful World,” Margo Price’s “Hard Headed Woman,” and Zach Top’s “Ain’t In It For My Health.”

Royster wonders if with this first year of nominees, “there’s less risk in terms of recognizing the kind of ‘country-ness’ of these artists.” Royster views the lineup as “artists (whose) country creds would still be recognized even if they’re also bringing in other elements. I would hope in the future there might be more room in the category.”

For Hughes, the nominees further confuse the distinctions. Consider this example: Zach Top’s album borrows heavily from George Strait’s sound, which emerged in the ‘70s as a mesh of honky-tonk traditions and contemporary country. Hip-hop also emerged in the ’70s. They were simultaneous. “But I have a feeling we won’t be seeing a lot of hip-hop-inspired artists in the traditional category,” he says.

But that doesn’t mean it might not evolve in the future. “If the Grammys fundamentally exist to give people recognition,” he says, “The more, the merrier.”

What country musicians say

“Anytime the pipe widens, more water gets through. And this was the pipe widening, baby,” Jelly Roll, who is nominated in the inaugural best contemporary country album category, told The Associated Press. “I love it. I’m happy. I’m a fan of both sides. It encourages me to maybe make a traditional country album one day, you know? So, this is cool.”

Three-time Grammy award winner Brad Paisley has a similar stance: There’s a benefit to having more country music recognitions.

“Awards are really tools to sort of get awareness for something that you made, you know?” he said. “They’re never the goal. It’s always more like, ‘Oh, cool, this might make more people listen to it.’ … If this means they got to make more little gold gramophone statues to give out, and two people get them versus one, great.”

That said: Paisley’s not sure which category he would fall into, or if the division could color an artist’s creative decisions. “I’d almost have to think it through like, ‘No, no, we’re going for the Grammy on this. I better not do this on this record or something.’ But hopefully that doesn’t ever enter into it,” he says.

Hopefully, it’s just a panel decided who belongs in which category, “and then two people get to go home happy versus one. And that’s good in my book,” he said.

The 68th Grammy Awards will be held Feb. 1, 2026, at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. The show will air on CBS and stream on Paramount+. For more coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/grammy-awards.

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