Artists push back on Grammy award cuts

LOS ANGELES, May 28 (UPI) -- A group of recording artists led by Bobby Sanabria is publicly opposing plans to drop more than 40 awards categories from the Grammys.

The coalition plans to protest the reductions in New York Sunday and in Los Angeles at Thursday's meeting of the board of the Recording Academy.

A formal letter of protest was sent to the academy this week over the signatures of music notables including Paul Simon, Herbie Hancock and Carlos Santana.

The letter said the reductions in award categories would significantly affect minority artists popular in niche markets.

Sanabria told the Los Angeles Times that reducing the number of categories would squeeze out less-mainstream genres, record labels and artists, such as jazz singer Esperanza Spalding who won a Grammy for best new artist in February.

"Once they are cut, the power of independent recording labels goes way down," said Sanabria. "You're not going to see someone like Esperanza Spalding winning again. The way things are now, nobody like that is going to win."