Bad Bunny could make Grammy history

NEW YORK (AP):

Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny continues to redefine global stardom and could make history again at the 2026 Grammy Awards.

The artiste, born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, is nominated for six awards at the February 1 ceremony, becoming the first Spanish-language performer to earn simultaneous nominations for album, song and record of the year. His latest release, Debí Tirar Más Fotos, is only the second Spanish-language album ever nominated for album of the year. The first was also his, 2022’s Un Verano Sin Ti.

Win or lose, the nominations mark a symbolic milestone for Latino representation. Just a week later, Bad Bunny will headline the Super Bowl half-time show.

HISTORIC NOMINATIONS REFLECT THE CULTURAL ZEITGEIST

Vanessa Díaz, associate professor of Chicano and Latino studies at Loyola Marymount University and co-author of P FKN R: How Bad Bunny Became the Global Voice of Puerto Rican Resistance, says Bad Bunny’s nods extend beyond his own art and serve as a “very welcome recognition of Latin music that is growing”.

“Music from the Spanish-speaking Caribbean has been shaping global music tastes since the 19th century,” adds Albert Laguna, associate professor of ethnicity, race and migration and American studies at Yale. “Bad Bunny is another link in a much longer chain of the popularity of Caribbean music on a global stage.”

Much of this music — particularly Latin trap and reggaetón, the genres Bad Bunny got his start in and continues to use in his new work — has been historically criminalised in Puerto Rico, not unlike hip-hop in the United States. Reggaetón in particular, Díaz points out, “comes from the most marginalised communities in Puerto Rico. And so, the fact that Bad Bunny is receiving nominations in three main categories, and this is an artiste who came up with trap … is the most groundbreaking thing about the entire situation”.

Petra Rivera-Rideau, associate professor of American studies at Wellesley College and co-author of P FKN R, says that element is particularly noteworthy because institutions often ignore marginalised genres — including at the Latin Grammys, a sister award show to the Grammys.

A victory in the major categories could have “profound, symbolic meaning”, she says. But with a caveat: “I’m interested to see if this is going to open doors for other people.” After all, Bad Bunny himself isn’t immune to the Recording Academy’s institutional biases: He already has three career Grammys, but all have been in música urbana categories — despite the fact that he is the most streamed artiste on the planet.

LOCAL-TO-GLOBAL APPEAL

Across Debí Tirar Más Fotos, Bad Bunny blends Latin trap and reggaetón with Puerto Rican folkloric styles, including música jíbara, salsa, bomba, plena and aguinaldo on Pitorro de Coco. While his past work drew from a wide range of global genres, this album feels rooted firmly at home.

Laguna sees Debí Tirar Más Fotos as a direct challenge to the prevailing “formula for global pop stardom”, which he describes as an artiste making it locally, gaining traction and then “watering down” their sound into something commercial and palatable for a global audience.

“Bad Bunny went in the opposite direction. It’s his most Puerto Rican album ever,” says Laguna. He hopes it will communicate to other artistes that they, too, can look to their ancestry and history for artmaking.

“There’s so much amazing Latin music that has been overlooked and that’s part of what is so beautiful about this moment,” says Díaz. “And that’s why it feels like a win for all Latinos.”

Latinos and the Spanish-speaking community in the US have grown increasingly wary amid growing anti-immigrant sentiment and raids, as President Donald Trump’s immigration policies and executive actions have vastly expanded who is eligible for deportation and routine hearings have turned into deportation traps for migrants.

In an interview with i-D Magazine earlier this year, Bad Bunny mentioned that concerns around the mass deportations of Latinos factored into his decision not to tour in the continental US ( Hundreds of people have been detained in Puerto Rico itself since large-scale arrests began in late January.).

“The content of the lyrics — which are so steeped in the history of Puerto Rico, political histories, tourism and gentrification — there’s so much rich political and historical content,” Díaz adds. “This album is historic even without a Grammy win.”

But, if Bad Bunny does win, Díaz says, it will be “akin to Halle Berry being the first Black woman to win an Oscar. That was a watershed moment. Or Rita Moreno being the first Latina to win.”

Beyond that, Laguna says the politics of the album are not exclusive to Puerto Rican or even Latino identity — “the lyrics on this album align with global struggles,” he says. Take, for example, Lo que le pasó a Hawaii (What happened to Hawaii), a rallying cry for cultural autonomy in an era of neocolonialisation.

THE ALBUM’S MULTIGENERATIONAL APPEAL

Rivera-Rideau says one of the reasons Debí Tirar Más Fotos has resonated is not just the political implications of using folkloric music in addition to música urbana, but its sound. The traditional genres are “a lot more digestible” to listeners who embrace the antiquated taboos surrounding Latin trap and scoff at reggaetón’s sexuality. As a result, the combination of sounds makes for an album that is “popular across generations”, she says.

But it only works because it is “musically really interesting. If it was just traditional music, and that’s only what people cared about, it wouldn’t have done as well as it did”, she explains. “Musically, it is super innovative and makes accessible a lot of these older genres that people in Puerto Rico listen to, but he’s been able to globalise these very local genres in a way that no one else has.”

That intergenerational appeal was a feature of Bad Bunny’s landmark Puerto Rican residency, with the age and global diversity of its audience.

“A lot of people feel like this is a tense moment, it’s a difficult moment. And here’s someone giving us a sonic language in which to narrate this complex present,” Laguna says. “There’s pleasure, in political critique, that the music makes possible in a beautiful way. And I think that’s very much welcomed.”