Dangerous Bunny, Ca7riel & Paco, Edgar Barrera lead Latin Grammy nominations : NPR

The Latin Grammy nominations, introduced Wednesday morning, function one title as the highest contender for golden gramophones this 12 months: Dangerous Bunny.

The Puerto Rican celebrity born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio is up for 12 awards, together with album of the 12 months, file of the 12 months and music of the 12 months (he is competing towards himself with a number of nominations within the latter two classes). By means of his rise lately as one of the crucial iconoclastic, untranslatable figures in pop — his reign colours far exterior the strains of Latin music — with a number of the largest songs and albums launched within the final decade, Dangerous Bunny has by no means gained a Latin Grammy in one of many three main classes.

As he has been yearly since 2017, he’s nominated within the city classes, together with finest reggaeton efficiency and finest city music album. The nods from the Recording Academy coincide with the closing weekend of his historic residency in San Juan, a 31-concert embodiment of his genre-bending album and love letter to Puerto Rico, DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS, which got here out in January.

Dangerous Bunny’s nominations additionally broaden past the city classes he has dominated up to now. DTMF‘s solemn, güiro-driven thesis, “LO QUE LE PASO A HAWAii,”— a condemnation of Puerto Rico’s colonial standing and gentrification — is nominated for finest roots music. It isn’t the primary time Dangerous Bunny’s title seems in a stunning down-ballot class; alongside the Texas-based Grupo Frontera, he gained finest regional music for the cumbia-pop “Un x100to” in 2023. However this 12 months’s recognitions spotlight that the Latin Recording Academy could lastly be able to embrace what they’ve shied away from up to now: Dangerous Bunny’s sharp, typically joyous, largely gut-wrenching political commentary.

To be clear, the 31-year-old doesn’t lack reward or awards from the Academy. Together with this 12 months, he is racked up 52 nominations and a dozen wins. However the Latin Grammys generally tend to tapar el sol con un dedo, the literal translation of which is “to cowl the solar with one finger,” however actually means to attempt to throw small gestures in the direction of one thing that requires a a lot bigger reckoning.

Throughout native devices, idioms and sonic textures, DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS is a reclamation of Puerto Rico’s historical past and cultural heritage. It attracts hyperlinks between the exodus of younger folks leaving the island, the inflow of rich buyers seeking to capitalize on its seashores and the non-public heartbreak of a world pop star watching all of it unfold. Dangerous Bunny’s album is an oath of resistance, a promise to struggle for a Puerto Rico that also belongs to its folks — and it is struck a chord not simply with boricuas, however with a whole Latin American diaspora greedy for a house and tradition they’ll nonetheless declare as their very own. Dangerous Bunny’s refusal to untangle perreo or plena from the lived realities of Puerto Rican and Latino communities might make DTMF the challenge that lastly wins him a Latin Grammy in one of many most important normal classes.

The Argentine duo CA7RIEL & Paco Amoroso — one other instance of revolutionary, idiosyncratic inventive expression rising from a politically-wrought nation — weren’t far behind Dangerous Bunny, racking up ten nominations for his or her album Papota. (Greater than half of the album was recorded throughout their exuberant efficiency at NPR’s Tiny Desk final 12 months, and one NPR engineer is listed among the many nominees for his contributions to the album.) CA7RIEL & Paco adopted their El Tiny cease with sold-out worldwide reveals, pageant performances and new songs featured on Papota that commemorate their friendship amidst the unending calls for of the music trade. The duo is up for album of the 12 months, file of the 12 months and music of the 12 months (they’ve two nominations in every of the latter two classes), in addition to quite a few various and pop awards. (The nominations span 60 awards in all, unfold throughout genres that embody conventional, jazz, various and kids’s music, amongst many others.)

It would not be the Latin Grammys with out a nod of the cowboy hat to Edgar Barrera, the hitmaker who had probably the most nominations of any artist in every of the final two years. He scored 10 nominations this 12 months, together with for producer of the 12 months and songwriter of the 12 months in addition to for his work on Karol G‘s tropimerengue “Si Antes Te Hubiera Conocido” and Shakira‘s sizzling lady hit, “Soltera.” Barrera can be well-represented inside one of the best regional class, the place he obtained three separate nods for his work with Grupo Frontera, Fuerza Regida, Carin León and Maluma.

One other artist will compete towards herself in a single class: Amongst sorceress-songstress Natalia Lafourcade‘s nominations are two for finest roots music alongside collaborator El David Aguilar. Most of Lafourcade’s nominations — together with album of the 12 months, file of the 12 months and music of the 12 months — stem from her jazz-folk album Cancionera, although she additionally obtained a finest conventional pop album nod for 2024’s Natalia Lafourcade Stay at Carnegie Corridor.

21-year-old Venezuelan singer Joaquina is up for 4 awards, together with album of the 12 months. Harking back to Shakira and Lafourcade’s punk-laden angle within the early 2000s, with colourful braids and heavy winged eyeliner, Joaquina grew to become the youngest individual to win finest new artist on the Latin Grammys in 2023. This 12 months, her album al romper la burbuja delivered on her coming-of-age pop-rock promise and likewise earned her nominations for finest modern pop vocal album and finest singer-songwriter music.

The Latin Grammys will happen in Las Vegas on Nov. 13, throughout a time of heightened tensions and anxieties for Latin American communities within the U.S. Some artists have already confronted difficulties acquiring visas to enter and carry out within the nation; there are considerations for the way followers may be impacted, too. Dangerous Bunny lately informed i-D he’s not bringing his world tour to the mainland U.S. out of worry that Immigration and Customs Enforcement might goal his concert events. It is potential the upcoming Latin Grammys will tackle a extra specific political tone than years previous, to match the strategy of its most-nominated artist.