This year the 21st Latin Grammy Awards ceremony will take place in Las Vegas. Since 2000, the Latin Recording Academy has held the Latin Grammy Award ceremony to honor music recorded in Spanish or Portuguese.

The Academy was founded in 1997, but the Latin Grammy Awards concept began in 1989 after it became clear that the world of Latin music had expanded so much that it no longer fit inside the Grammy Awards. The nomination and voting process is similar to that of the original Grammy Awards, where peers within the Latin Music industry choose the winners.

The Latin Grammy Awards were established to give Latin artists the recognition they had long worked hard for and deserved. However, the Latin Recording Academy has received its fair share of criticism from recording artists and music journalists as the musical landscape has evolved.

The astronomical rise of urban artists and their struggle for recognition

‍Spanish-language urban music has been propelled into the limelight in recent years, including in markets where Spanish is not commonly spoken. What may have once been considered a minor category has grown significantly, representing a massive share of global Latin music sales. However, reggaeton, trap, and rap artists are currently represented in the same category, Urbano, and many artists such as Daddy Yankee, Bad Bunny, and J Balvin have called for these genres to have separate categories. Last year Balvin shared a protest on Instagram with his 45 million followers saying: Sin reggaeton no hay Latin Grammy.
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Maluma is another artist who has spoken up in defense of his genre. He and many other urban artists feel betrayed by the Academy, claiming that they are invited to perform at the Latin Grammys to boost ratings, but due to the genre of their music, they are rarely considered for nominations and stand little chance of winning, especially in the main categories.

Categories that aren’t inclusive enough of linguistic diversity

‍Many other regional and heritage languages are spoken throughout the Latin world, and these languages have their own musical traditions. Many artists who consider themselves to be Latin in terms of their identity (e.g. musicians from Haiti) have found that their work does not meet the Academy’s eligibility criteria. Current rules state that 51% of a recording must be recorded in Spanish or Portuguese to be eligible for nomination.

The inclusion of Spanish artists in the Latin Grammy Awards

‍A long-standing debate was reignited last year when Rosalía won Album of the Year about precisely who the Latin Grammy Awards are meant to represent. Some Latin Americans have voiced their disapproval of recording artists from Spain being nominated as they are not technically Latin American.