It has been an incredibly difficult month for those living in Los Angeles. The recent wildfires have ravaged the city, burning down thousands of homes and buildings in its wake. Many of the thousands of people who have been displaced by the wildfires are still displaced today. And yet, the 2025 Grammy Awards will go on as scheduled. It’s almost surreal, but a few figures behind the award ceremony have explained their decision to ensure the show goes on.
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Only a few days before the fires set the city ablaze, Los Angeles was celebrating the upcoming award season with the Golden Globes. In the aftermath of the fires, many have called to cancel the 2025 Grammy Awards, among other award shows coming up soon.
Harvey Mason Jr., the CEO of the Recording Academy, recently spoke about the decision to make sure the show goes on. Grammy Awards executive producer Ben Winston also chimed in on why the Grammys would go on as usual. To put it simply, both figures believe that this is the perfect time to raise money via the awards ceremony.
Recording Academy CEO on Decision to Go Forward with the 2025 Grammy Awards: “We Need To Support Those People”
“Some of our community, from the music community, have lost their homes,” said Mason Jr. in an interview with CNN. “They’ve lost their instruments. I know one guy that lost his entire studio. All his collections, all his instruments, and this is how they make a living. So, if we were to postpone the show, we wouldn’t be able to raise the money that we need to support those people.”
“We know we’ve got the biggest stars in the whole world that are sitting there, and we bring real awareness to what’s happened,” said Winston, an LA resident himself, of the decision to go forward with the 2025 Grammy Awards. “We do some really serious fundraising for the causes that need it so much right now. [And] we pay tribute to our first responders. We showcase LA businesses. Surely that is worth doing rather than not doing.”
Both figures have acknowledged that matching the right tone at this year’s ceremony won’t be an easy task, but it’s one they’re willing to take on. Mason Jr. acknowledged that the Grammys are “cool” but noted that there are more important things at stake, referencing the fact that “some people have lost their lives here.”
“Before this happened, I probably knew the name of four of my neighbors,” said Winston. “I reckon I now know about 23 of them. There is a sense of community right now in Los Angeles that I personally haven’t seen before, where people are helping each other.”
Winston went on to say that he hopes they can reflect that sense of community through tomorrow night’s awards ceremony.
The 2025 Grammy Awards will air live tomorrow, February 2, at 5:00 pm PT via CBS.
Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for The Recording Academy
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