Award season is officially upon us ladies and gentleman! Starting in 1959, the Grammy's are held by the Recording Academy to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry. Last week the recording academy released their nominations for the 2018 Grammy Awards and the top categories are rightfully dominated by POC.

The statistics are clear, as you can see in the picture above all of the top nominees are POC. Four out of the five nominees for song and album of the year came from artists of color along with all five nominees being artists of color for record of the year. This is also the first time since 1999, not a single white male artist or group was nominated for the Album of the Year category.

Over the past two years, there has been a public outroar for more diversity within the Grammy Awards due to Beyoncé and Kendrick Lamar losing the Album of the Year category to more traditional albums by Adele and Taylor Swift. Even last year at the Grammy Awards, Adele stated her opinion about winning Album of The Year over Beyoncé, saying “What the f**k does she have to do to win album of the year? That’s how I feel.”

With the help of music streaming services, the music industry is increasingly changing and also making hip-hop America's most popular genre. Streaming services are also allowing these artists (majority being people of color) to be honored and recognized by the recording academy and acknowledging the people's influences.

Jay-Z is this upcoming year's most nominated artist with eight nominations, making his Grammy nomination collection become 74. He also holds a nomination in every category in the rap field along with Kendrick Lamar, who holds seven nominations for the 2018 Grammy's. Instead of it being Ed Sherran vs. Kendrick looks like it turned out to be Jay-Z vs. Kendrick.

Now that we see more diverse representation in the nominee pool, let's wait and see these artist pull some Grammy wins.