Usher and Fantasia should cherish their Grammy Awards for Best Male and Female R&B Vocal Performance as their awards were the last of their kind. Moving forward, it's been announced that the Grammy Awards have trimmed the field of 109 Awards down to 78. A whopping 31 categories have been eliminated for the forthcoming ceremonies in an effort to maintain the prestige of the Grammy Awards.
While an overhaul was needed for the Grammys, the R&B field has been cut in half with the elimination of the Best Female R&B Vocal Performance, Best Male R&B Vocal Performance, Best R&B Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocals, Best Urban/Alternative Performance, and Best Contemporary R&B Album. While I understand the rational given to maintain the prestige of the Grammy Awards, I don't agree with the merger of the different vocal performances categories into one. Male, female, and group vocals merit their own awards in my opinion. Also the loss of the Best Urban/ Alternative Performance and Best Contemporary R&B Album mean that Soul singers, R&B singers, and R&B/ Pop singers will now all compete for the same awards.
In my opinion I do believe that some of the 31 cut categories deserved to be cut or reinterpreted, but the already small R&B filed didn't deserve to be cut down so much. With the narrowed R&B field, one can only hope that true R&B/Soul singers will be nominated in these categories and Urban Pop will find its way into the Pop categories then.
Time will tell how the music community will respond to the sharp decline in categories and how it impacts the perception of the Grammys.
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