Raj Kapoor speaks during the"Meet The Oscars Creative Team"event at Hollywood & Highland, in Hollywood, Calif. on Feb. 5, 2020.. “We’re not actively going out to pursue artists out-of-genre. I think the most important thing is that it fits in a very natural way. We’re not asking people to come in who don’t have relationships or haven’t wanted to work together or don’t have projects together. We always want to stay authentically country.
“I think my job is to make each show unique,” Kapoor says, “because they have such different DNA. That’s really what I strive for. They’re brands almost. They’re all actually academies. It’s so different from just a pop show. There’s so many eyeballs on what we do. I guess I didn’t realize the complexities of that before I took on these positions. I’m much more aware of what goes on behind-the-scenes because it’s not just about our show.
“We always believe it’s a conversation,” Kapoor says. “Obviously, we’re there to help guide sometimes. ‘Why don’t we try this?’ ‘What would you think about this?’ Sometimes we will push if we have a really strong belief about something, but it’s always a conversation, always a collaboration. Menton says the partnership with Amazon has affected the show in another way. “It has allowed us to open those guardrails up and take chances. We’ve leaned into new artist development a lot more, we lean into diversity. We lean into something that’s completely out of the box; other shows may feel a bit uncomfortable trying to do. Amazon gives us that ability to move and shake a bit differently. But I also think the industry comes to us with those out-of-the-box ideas.