By Daniel Trotta
(Reuters) -Puerto Rican star Bad Bunny and Argentine hip-hop duo Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso each won five Latin Grammy awards in Las Vegas on Thursday, cementing Bad Bunny as an industry titan while thrusting the lesser-known act into the spotlight.
Bad Bunny won album of the year for “Debí Tirar Más Fotos,” a tour de force mixing styles from Afro-Caribbean to salsa that netted him 12 nominations. He also won for best urban/urban fusion performance, best reggaeton performance, best urban music album, and best urban song.
The awards only burnish his reputation ahead of his wider introduction to English-speaking America and a worldwide audience as the halftime performer of the Super Bowl in February, a choice that rankled some U.S. traditionalists including President Donald Trump, who said he had never heard of Bad Bunny.
The rapidly growing Latin music sector generated a record $1.4 billion in 2024, making up 8.1% of total U.S. music revenue, according to the Recording Industry Association of America, which said it was shaping the culture faster than any other genre.
Bad Bunny, 31, whose real name is Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio, has also received six nominations for the regular Grammys to be awarded on February 2, including for the major categories of record, song and album of the year. He was the first Latin artist to be nominated in the three major categories in the same year.
In winning album of the year, Bad Bunny was honored over industry luminaries such as the Spaniard Alejandro Sanz and Cuban-born Gloria Estefan.
Sanz, however, won two awards: record of the year for “Palmeras En El Jardín,” and best contemporary pop album for “¿Y Ahora Qué?” That raised his career total to 24.
Estefan still took home the award for best traditional tropical album for “Raíces.”
Karol G claimed song of the year, with “Si Antes Te Hubiera Conocido” winning over the Bad Bunny title song from his album.
BREAK WITH TRADITION
In September the National Football League announced Bad Bunny would headline the Super Bowl halftime show on February 8, 2026, when he is likely to become the first such act to perform entirely or mostly in Spanish. In 2020, he made a guest appearance at the halftime show headlined by Jennifer Lopez and Shakira, helping boost his meteoric rise.
While the NFL is embracing the genre, and the entertainment dollars that come with it, American football’s break with tradition was poorly received by some fans including Trump, who called the choice of Bad Bunny as halftime entertainer “absolutely ridiculous.”
“I never heard of him. I don’t know who he is. I don’t know why they’re doing it – it’s, like, crazy,” Trump told Newsmax in October.
Bad Bunny, who has criticized Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement, supported Trump’s opponent Kamala Harris in the 2024 election.
“Brother, this is always a special moment for me. And I get just as nervous as the first time. That means that what I do matters to me,” Bad Bunny, who had won a total of 12 Latin Grammys in previous years, said upon taking home the first televised award of the night.
He later performed “Weltita,” a single from the album, with the backing band Chuwi.
Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso had 10 nominations and won for best pop song, best alternative music album, best alternative song, best short form music video and best long form music video.
Paloma Morphy, a 25-year-old Mexican, won best new artist after her debut album “Au,” which won over listeners with catchy melodies.
(Reporting by Daniel Trotta in Carlsbad, California; Editing by Saad Sayeed)
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