The Juno Awards are casting a spotlight on Canadian-made South Asian music as part of broader changes to the annual celebration.
Organizers at the country’s biggest music awards show said Monday they intend to introduce two new categories next year, with the other giving more space to songwriters.
The new South Asian music recording of the year award will toast homegrown musicians who work in genres inspired by the region, including Punjabi and Bollywood music.
Its addition comes after British Columbia-based musician Karan Aujla became the first Punjabi artist to win the viewer-voted Juno fan choice award earlier this year.
Meanwhile, a new non-performing songwriter of the year category will award creators who pen lyrics for other musicians. It divides the existing songwriter category into two, with the other awarding artists who’ve written their own work.
The Junos made the announcement after pulling back on plans to put four categories on “hiatus” next year — children’s album, reggae recording and Christian/gospel album and international album.
An internal memo obtained by The Canadian Press earlier this month showed those categories were originally going to be shelved for the 2025 show. But a swift blowback from the music community led CEO Allan Reid to reinstate three of the awards.
Kafinal celebrates his Juno award for Reggae Recording of the Year at the JUNO Gala dinner in Calgary, Saturday, April 2, 2016. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward)
The Junos say they only intend to sideline the international album prize, which was awarded to non-Canadian artists with a global impact.
“To inform future changes, we will continue to work closely with artists, industry professionals, and communities, ensuring that all decisions are made thoughtfully and inclusively reflecting trends, data and cultural significances within our communities,” the organization said in a statement.
The Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences says various other changes will take effect for the 2025 award show.
Breakthrough artist and breakthrough group will now be a single category with 10 nominees, instead of separate awards with five nominees.
CARAS is also tweaking the rules around two of its marquee Juno awards to give more weight to Canadian artists’ popularity.
In recent years, nominees for both the artist and group of the year categories have been determined based on a 50-50 split between CARAS voters and consumption data that included sales and streams.
As of this year, the formula for both categories will reduce the weight of the delegate vote to 25 per cent, while weighting radio audience data at 12.5 per cent, social data at 12.5 per cent and global listenership at 50 per cent.
The rap album and single categories will also factor in consumption data for the first time, split 50-50 with votes.
Two Indigenous categories – contemporary Indigenous artist or group of the year and traditional Indigenous artist or group of the year – will be also rebranded as recording categories to move the focus from solely celebrating the artists to honouring their music.
The 54th Juno Awards ceremony will be held at Vancouver’s Rogers Arena on March 30, 2025.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 23, 2024