A 33-year-old fresh face who received praise from both Prince and Quincy Jones nearly made history at the 2025 Grammy Awards.
Alissia Benveniste, who just goes by Alissia, was nominated for Producer of the Year. Had she won, she would’ve been the first woman ever to claim that award.
To a lot of pop music fans, Alissia was a new name. (She doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page yet.) But she’s worked on Grammy-nominated music by Mary J. Blige, Kaytranada, Anderson .Paak, and more. Bootsy Collins was an early mentor. The late icons Prince and Quincy Jones both reached out to compliment and encourage her.
Alissia lost to a deserving winner — Daniel Nigro, who helmed smash hits by Chappell Roan and Olivia Rodrigo. But her defeat was a reminder of the lack of success for women in the Producer of the Year category.
Only 10 women have been nominated in the history of the category. None have ever won.
To be fair, there are far more men than women working in music production, mixing and engineering. It’s reasonable to expect men to dominate the Grammy Awards for these categories.
But not a single woman winning the award in five decades? That seems hard to believe.
It’s worth noting that women have received Grammys in other technical categories. A handful of women have won the Grammy Award for Best Engineered Album, and dozens have been nominated. In fact, six different women were nominated for that award in 2025 alone.
And in the category for Producer of the Year, Classical, a separate award focusing solely on classical music, women have won the award a whopping 13 times.
Yet we’re still waiting for the first woman to claim the main Producer of the Year prize. Which women have been previously nominated? And who might be the first to win it? Let’s tackle these questions.
Women Who Have Been Nominated for Producer of the Year
The category of Producer of the Year, Non-Classical, as it’s officially called, was created in 1975. That means we’ve had 52 Grammy ceremonies without a female victor.
Here’s the full list of women who have been credited with Grammy nominations for Producer of the Year.
1985: Wendy Melvoin & Lisa Coleman (as part of Prince & the Revolution)
1990: Janet Jackson (with Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis)
1992: Mariah Carey (with Walter Afanasieff)
1998: Paula Cole
1999: Sheryl Crow
1999: Lauryn Hill
2004: Lauren Christy (with Scott Spock & Graham Edwards as “The Matrix”)
2019: Linda Perry
2025: Alissia
That’s ten women in total. Seven were nominated for producing their own music, and five were nominated as part of a team.
That leaves only two women who were recognized by themselves for producing other artists’ music: Linda Perry in 2019, and Alissia in 2025.
Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman were the first female nominees, as part of Prince’s Revolution band in 1985 for their work on Purple Rain. They didn’t finish in the top two in voting, because the award that year was a tie between David Foster and Lionel Richie with James Anthony Carmichael.
In 1990, Janet Jackson scored a nod along with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, for Rhythm Nation 1814. Three years earlier, Jam & Lewis had won Producer of the Year, but when Janet was nominated alongside them, they did not win, losing in a seriously questionable decision to Linda Ronstadt’s producer, Peter Asher.
Mariah Carey also scored a nod with Walter Afanasieff in 1992, but lost to Foster.
It wasn’t until 1998 that a woman managed a solo nomination in this category. Two-hit wonder Paula Cole picked up the honor, one of seven nominations she scored as a newcomer. She had no chance of winning Producer of the Year, as Babyface was in the middle of an unstoppable three-year reign.
When Sheryl Crow and Lauryn Hill both earned noms the following year, it looked as though women were finally starting to break through in this category. They lost to Rob Cavallo, an excellent rock producer with a great track record, but one who had a somewhat quiet year, with his only major credits being the City of Angels soundtrack and Green Day’s Nimrod.
In 2004, Lauren Christy and her two male partners in The Matrix production team were up for Producer of the Year and Song of the Year for their work on Avril Lavigne’s debut album. They lost to the Neptunes.
It would be 15 more years until Linda Perry appeared in the category. Her nomination was a surprise, as her only main credit that year was Dolly Parton’s Dumplin’ soundtrack. It felt like one of those nominations where the Recording Academy gives long overdue recognition to someone they overlooked for too long.
Alissia’s 2025 nomination gives hope that women could be recognized in this category soon. She told The Hollywood Reporter, “I receive so many DMs from young girls telling me, ‘I really love producing but I feel hopeless.’ [I want] labels and artists to feel like they can really trust when they see a woman producer [and] they can really feel a little more inclined to include them in what they’re doing.”
Which Women Were Snubbed for Producer of the Year?
Ok, so which women actually deserved to win this award? We’ve come up with at least four occasions on which women legitimately should have walked away with the gramophone.
Start with Janet Jackson, who should’ve triumphed with Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis in 1990, considering the quality of her album and the level of her competition.
Lauryn Hill deserved to take this award for her production on the incredible The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill in 1999, with Sheryl Crow as a solid runner-up for The Globe Sessions.
Though Linda Perry wasn’t nominated until 2019, she should have won this trophy in 2003, after an incredible year producing most of Pink’s Missundaztood, several tracks for Christina Aguilera (including “Beautiful,” which Perry wrote), and songs for Faith Hill, Jewel, and Solange.
The fact that Perry wasn’t nominated in 2003 was one of the great oversights in this category.
And in 2024, Brandi Carlile, who is otherwise a Grammy darling, was overlooked for Producer of the Year despite producing remarkable albums by Tanya Tucker and Brandy Clark, plus the historic live record Joni Mitchell at Newport.
We thought Carlile had a good chance of winning in 2024, but she wasn’t even nominated. Jack Antonoff took the prize for a third straight year.
It should be noted that the BRIT Awards have had a similar problem, nominating very few women over the years for this award. In 2026, PinkPantheress became the first woman to win Producer of the Year at the BRITs. How long will it take the Grammys to follow suit?
Why Aren’t More Women Working in Music Production?
This is a much more complicated question. Billboard did a deep dive on this topic a few years back. At last count, only 5.9% of the producers on Hot 100 tracks are women.
The consensus was that it’s a combination of women not being interested in production, and not considering it as a career path. Others talked about a lack of role models, and a lack of respect among some male performers.
Hip hop producer WondaGurl noted that artists often didn’t take her seriously at first. “Sometimes people are like, ‘Why is this girl in the room?,'” she told Billboard. “Earlier, I would never talk; I’d just play the beat. I wouldn’t give direction much, because they wouldn’t take it. Now they take it seriously.”
Many female producers interviewed wondered why the huge collection of female performers don’t look for female producers more often.
Indeed, it is striking to see male producers like Jack Antonoff getting on stage to collect awards for working mostly with female superstars like Taylor Swift, Lana Del Rey, the Chicks, St. Vincent, Lorde, and Florence + the Machine. Might any of these artists someday make an intentional effort to seek out a female producer?
Notably, the organization We Are Moving the Needle is a group of women who work in music production and creation. Founded by Grammy-winning engineer Emily Lazar, the group awards scholarships and creates mentorships for women who want to work behind the scenes.
Who Will Be the First Woman to Win Producer of the Year?
Alissia appears to be the most likely contender. She’s young, has respect from some of the biggest names in the business, and she continues to work with big stars on successful albums.
Alissia is currently the favorite to became the first woman to break down one of the Grammys’ last major gender barriers. Perhaps she’ll be nominated again as soon as the 2027 Grammys.
Who else? Catherine Marks is a name to keep an eye on. She’s been on the rise for more than a decade and had a notable mainstream breakthrough by co-producing Boygenius’ The Record, an Album of the Year nominee in 2024.
Sylvia Massy has had a lengthy career producing and mixing for Tool, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and numerous other rock acts. WondaGurl has been producing hip-hop hits since she was a teen, for the likes of Jay-Z, Drake, and Travis Scott. Ester Dean is known more as a songwriter, but has production credits for Rihanna and Flo Rida.
Two emerging names to keep an eye on are Luka Kloser and Elvira Anderfjard, who co-produced Addison Rae’s breakthrough hit “Diet Pepsi” and most of her album. They appeared with Rae on the cover of Billboard recently. They are proteges of production legend Max Martin, which gives them immediate credibility.
Carlile and Perry could still be in the running for this award in the future. Rosalia and PinkPantheress won the first two Producer of the Year awards at the Billboard Women in Music Awards.
Other women who could potentially be recognized for their production in addition to their performing include Janelle Monae, Clairo, Missy Elliott, FKA Twigs, Alicia Keys, and Imogen Heap (who won a Grammy as an engineer.)
Which women producers do you think deserve more acclaim?
Last Updated on February 25, 2026