Every year, there’s at least one song that takes the world by storm. It’s the earworm you just can’t get away from. This year, it was Moliy and Silent Addy’s smash hit entitled “Shake it to the Max”. You likely heard it while scrolling through social media, and if you’ve got kids, there’s a very high chance they could recite the viral dance at a moment’s notice.

 

Though it really took off on social media, it also experienced landmark success in the real world. Since its December 2024 release, the song made waves internationally and ‘soundtracked a seismic moment in African and Caribbean music in 2025’, as this Billboard article rightfully describes it. And when dancehall sensations Skillibeng and Shenseea hopped on a remix, the song caught an even more powerful second wind, landing on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart and garnering over 200 million views. 

 

So you can imagine the collective shock over the song not appearing on the final list of 2026 Grammy nominees when it was released in early November. Music executive Larry Jackson, who formerly worked at Interscope Records and Apple Music before co-founding gamma. and becoming CEO of the modern media and tech enterprise, shared his reaction in a statement to Billboard. 

“It pains me to have to acknowledge this, because Harvey Mason Jr. is a long-time personal friend, and I also don’t attribute any of this directly to him…But I found it to be deeply disappointing that [the Recording Academy] subjectively chose to disqualify Moliy’s ‘Shake It to the Max (Fly)’ remix, one of the biggest songs in the world this year, from the Best Global Music Performance and African Music categories.” 

What’s interesting about Larry’s statement is how clear it is that he is trying to honour and balance relationships with expectations and hopes with business. But his message is still clear – it was very deliberate on the part of the Recording Academy to disqualify this song. But why?

 

According to the rules of the Academy, the remix was eligible for the 2026 Grammys. The musical additions from Shenseea and Skillibeng, plus the new intro from Moliy successfully met the Academy’s definition of a ‘new recording’. It also successfully met the criteria that stipulates only one version or mix of any given song is eligible in the span of a year. The remix even holds something called a unique International Standard Recording Code, which is a digital identifier that confirms it as its own master recordings. But when it came to the two specific categories of Best Global Music Performance and Best African Music Performance, the rules stipulate remixes are simply not eligible. 

“It really is unfortunate that the song isn’t eligible in the best African music performance and best global music performance categories this year,” a spokesman for the Recording Academy told Billboard. “We all acknowledge it is a massive song with significant cultural impact. Unfortunately, but quite simply, it was submitted as a remix, and as per our longstanding and published rules, remixes are just not eligible in these categories. Regardless, our goal is always to honor, respect and fairly represent creators and the music they make — so we will keep working to improve our entry processes and eligibility guidelines.” 

But if the goal is in fact to honor, respect and fairly represent creators and the music they make, and if their goal really is to ‘keep working to improve’ the processes and eligibility guidelines, wouldn’t this have been an opportune time to do that? And is he implying that there will be changes to the Academy’s requirements? Or is he just saying that?

 

Rules are rules, I get that part. But after what we’ve seen in recent years with Beyonce’s foray into country be met with staunch resistance despite chart-topping hits, you can’t help but see a disturbing pattern, a pattern that also affected Black country artists like Shaboozey. And on the heels of writing about equity this week, this is another one of those scenarios where it’s a bit more nuanced. Despite Moliy’s initial success, the song would not have had the impact it did without the star power of Skillibeng and Shenseea. Lending their voices to the song was a deliberate act to help boost it. And it worked. This is a very common practice for Caribbean and African musicians. That’s why you’ll see ethnic artists with more mainstream power and reputability jump on songs by emerging artists - to give it a boost and help extend the song’s shelf life.

The reason most of these artists do this? Because they understand the difficulty of breaking into the mainstream market, the very market that might find them the winners of a Grammy some day. But also, because they know the value of any given song long before it receives mainstream notoriety. Consider it one of the healthiest, most organic versions of non-familial nepotism you’ll ever see. And this is characteristic of our entire culture. We help each other out. When immigrant families land in a new country, they can depend on their community members for help with anything from settling in to getting enough money together to ensure they have winter coats. We really do try to help each other out in whatever our endeavours may be – be it trying to snag a Grammy or trying to eat or stay warm.

 

The thing about Caribbean music and African music and music that stems from almost anywhere in the world outside of North America is that it is a direct reflection of the diaspora. We don’t have just one sound. There is a lot of blending and a lot of mixing. That’s what art is. But in the world of North American music award systems, we are allowing other people to define what our music is and what it needs to sound like. And frankly, the current categorization of the Recording Academy’s criteria as it pertains to the music submitted for consideration reflects a very rigid, very neat and most alarmingly, a very unrealistic system that, intentionally or not, marginalizes entire groups of people because we simply do not fit into the categories they have assigned us. 

That’s why a few years ago, a group got together and started the Caribbean Music Awards. Unlike the Grammys, voting is in the hands of the public and done in four stages. First, the submissions. Artists can submit their own music for a wide range of genres including reggae, soca, dancehall, konpa, gospel, zess and more. And the timeline rules are simple. Entries must have been released during the full calendar year prior. January 1 to December 31 for all genres – except for my personal favourite genre, which is soca. 

“Soca entries will be evaluated with a slightly adjusted window to accommodate the genre’s alignment with the Carnival season,” the website reads. 

 

See? That is nuance. That is making an appropriate adjustment based on cultural practice and understanding that an exception must be made in order to allow equal access to the opportunity for success.

The other stages include pre-voting, the release of nominations and then the final decision stage. That’s the stage where voting is open to the public “with weighted votes ensuring balanced representation…Award winners are determined through a combination of public support, streaming data, and board evaluation.” Again, nuance.

If the Grammys, the Country Music Awards and the Academy of Country Music have any intention of holding onto the attention and presence of the artists that are undoubtedly pushing their respective genres forward, they ought to start giving them the recognition they deserve. Because not only would it make more sense for more spaces similar to the Caribbean Music Awards to be created, but it would protect the artists who, year after year, experience microaggressions and blatant racism while in attendance. 

This year’s Caribbean Music Awards show gained so much notoriety it was picked up by BET and streamed by the network. And while it’s been amazing to see a fairly homegrown initiative pick up so much steam and most importantly, honour all of the amazing musicians in genres not necessarily visible or known in more mainstream spaces, I will always have mixed feelings about the Caribbean community being left to our own devices in order to ensure our music is recognized and celebrated. But as the old saying goes, if you want something done right, sometimes you have to do it yourself.

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