Thania Garcia Latin music had a historic showing at the Grammys in 2022: For the first time, an all-Spanish-language album — Bad Bunny’s “Un Verano Sin Ti” — was nominated for album of the year.
Of course, it was a long shot: It was up against Adele, Beyoncé, Kendrick Lamar, Lizzo, ultimate winner Harry Styles and others, and not least because the awards show only recently committed to diversifying its voter pool.
But more to the point, “Maybe [the Grammys] weren’t ready for a Spanish-language album to win the big prize,” Bunny speculated to Vanity Fair earlier this year.
A fairly accurate conclusion considering one anonymous voter told Variety in 2022, “Bad Bunny had by far the most commercially successful album of the year, but I think a lot of people have no idea who Bad Bunny is.” While the thriving Latin music industry has not had quite the Bunny-scale blockbuster in the past year — few artists in any genre approach his level of popularity — the calls for representation continue: Will Latin artists have big nominations at the 2024 Grammys?
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