The Grammys got canceled, again.

On the night of the 2023 Grammy Awards ceremony, along with glaring names in the music industry, #Robbed stood out as the only dissonance among all Twitter trending hashtags.

The outrage was ignited when Harry Styles won the night’s most prestigious award “Album of the Year.” Despite the shock that Styles beat Beyonce, who was most-anticipated to take home the trophy, Harry Styles’ victory speech came as an even bigger shock to the fans:

“This doesn’t happen to people like me very often and this is so, so nice. Thank you very much.”

The pop star immediately received backlash online. Sam Sanders, a former NPR podcast host tweeted that Styles' speech "is the most white privilege-iest thing to ever be uttered at an awards show ever for all time.”

“This doesn’t happen to people like me” is the most white privilege-iest thing to ever be uttered at an awards show ever for all time

— Sam Sanders (@samsanders) February 6, 2023

Harry Styles' controversial speech certainly isn't the only reason why the Grammys and the Recording Academy came under fire.

Many artists of color had publicly declared their disdain for the award’s lack of inclusion. Musicians such as 50 Cent, Kanye West and Jay-Z had boycotted the award by not attending the ceremony despite being nominated (and winning in some cases). In 2017, singer Frank Ocean called out the Grammys as an institution with "nostalgic importance” during an interview with the New York Times.

“It just doesn’t seem to be representing very well for people who come from where I come from, and hold down what I hold down. I think the infrastructure of the awarding system and the nomination system and screening system is dated.” Ocean said.

Here's an overview of the Grammys' diversity in its "Big Four" awards, from 1990 to the present, only a little more than 40% of nominees are artists of color.

(note: “Song of the Year” category is omitted because it is awarded to the songwriter, not the artist)

Over the years, white nominees stood a higher chance of winning than non-white nominees.

Not only do artists of color receive fewer nominations in the main categories, they are also less likely to win an award after being nominated. From 1990 to 2023, the Grammys selected 102 winners among 568 nominations in these categories. 21% of white nominees successfully brought home a trophy, while only 14% of non-white nominees ended up winning.

So how does the Grammys nomination pipeline work?

In order to be nominated for the award, a musician's work must first be submitted for consideration. Every year, members of the Recording Academy can recommend releases for the Grammys. A selected group of members, also known as the "voting class," will then put together a shortlist for each category and ultimately pick the winner.

In 2020, the Academy disclosed its "diversity and inclusion numbers" during an industry summit #ChangeMusic. According to the report, of all 14,553 academy members, 26% were female and 69% were male (6% were reported as unknown).

As to racial diversity, the academy reported 11% of its voting members were Black. The Academy did not disclose data for other members in the voting class.

Only in recent years had the Grammys attempted to address its inclusion issue.

Prior to the 2022 award season, a committee of 15-30 members had the final say on the selection of nominees and winners. This mechanism, which many critics claimed was a "black box rule," left room for corruption and bias.

A 2020 report by the Rolling Stone revealed that members of the final committee would "shoehorn in" artists who weren't selected by the general voting membership, and even engaged in "financial lobbying for votes," according to sources inside the Recording Academy.

The academy changed its rules last year so that entries in the general categories will go through a peer-reviewed, majority vote process.

The Recording Academy also launched an “Inclusion Rider” program last year to “recognize the value of people from under-represented backgrounds and create space for increased and meaningful representation for everyone in the music community,” according to the Grammys' website.

The “Inclusion Rider” program states that the academy will “strive” to ensure that one-third of its on-stage and off-stage employees will be from “under-represented communities,” defined as women and people of color. Who are, in other words, anyone except white men.

Learn more about the data analysis in this story.