Nine awards will become six when P3 Guld is back in January with a gala for the first time in two years as last year's award ceremony was canceled due to the pandemic.

Before the gala comeback, P3 changes the price.

No more awards for pop, rock/metal, dance or hip-hop/r'n'b of the year.

The special categories are scrapped and instead the nominations are expanded to eight names in the broad classes, such as artist, song and album of the year, compared to four or five previously.

- The good thing about this is that we nominate more, so we pay attention to more artists per category even if the categories are fewer, says Tina Mehfrazoon.

TT: Why are you doing this?

- In the world of music, we can use genre divisions and categorizations, but in jury work it can sometimes get in the way.

It's about us highlighting quality, not necessarily boxing things in, says Tina Mehrafzoon.

Met with criticism

The announcement that the special categories are being removed was met with criticism by the rappers as well as previous year's artist-winners Jireel and Yasin, writes Aftonbladet.

Jireel, who was supposed to perform at the gala, writes on Instagram that due to a misleading post on one of P3's social media channels, he thought only the hip-hop/r'n'b category had been removed.

He has subsequently demanded that the post be removed and clarified.

"But they have refused to take down the picture despite all the criticism they have received and therefore I will refuse to play at the P3 Guld gala next week," he writes.

Yasin also took to Instagram, where he posted a picture of his P3 Gold prizes thrown in a trash can.

Yasin not super current

The nominations for this year's gala will be released on December 5.

The gala itself takes place on January 27 in the Partille arena outside Gothenburg.

Zara Larsson, Viagra Boys, Hooja and Olivia Lobato are some of the artists performing at the gala.

Two years ago, Sveriges Radio was criticized because the rapper Yasin received a prize at the P3 Gold gala, despite the fact that he was then charged and later convicted of preparing to kidnap rival Einár.

But while, for example, the organizers of the Music Publishers' Prize decided that convicted persons could not be rewarded, Sveriges Radio wants to distinguish between work and person and referred to "artistic freedom".

That policy is fixed, according to Tina Mehrafzoon.

- We have not changed anything regardless of the discussions that have taken place.

We stick to that.

Then I don't know what will be celebrated and not celebrated.

Yasin hasn't been super relevant in the past year, says Tina Mehrafzoon.

This is the rap artist Yasin:

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Who is the artist Yasin?

Find out in the video.