Unhealthy Bunny, seen right here in the course of the first present of his residency on the Coliseo de Puerto Rico in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on July 11, 2025, leads the record of nominees at this yr’s Latin Grammy Awards.
Ricardo Arduengo/Getty Pictures
disguise caption
toggle caption
Ricardo Arduengo/Getty Pictures
The Latin Grammy nominations, introduced Wednesday morning, characteristic one identify as the highest contender for golden gramophones this yr: Unhealthy Bunny.
The Puerto Rican celebrity born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio is up for 12 awards, together with album of the yr, report of the yr and track of the yr (he is competing in opposition to himself with a number of nominations within the latter two classes). By way of his rise in recent times as one of the iconoclastic, untranslatable figures in pop — his reign colours far exterior the strains of Latin music — with among the greatest songs and albums launched within the final decade, Unhealthy Bunny has by no means received 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 greatest reggaeton efficiency and greatest 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.
Unhealthy Bunny’s nominations additionally develop past the city classes he has dominated prior 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 greatest roots track. It is not the primary time Unhealthy Bunny’s identify seems in a shocking down-ballot class; alongside the Texas-based Grupo Frontera, he received greatest regional track for the cumbia-pop “Un x100to” in 2023. However this yr’s recognitions spotlight that the Latin Recording Academy could lastly be able to embrace what they’ve shied away from prior to now: Unhealthy Bunny’s sharp, generally joyous, principally gut-wrenching political commentary.
To be clear, the 31-year-old doesn’t lack reward or awards from the Academy. Together with this yr, he is racked up 52 nominations and a dozen wins. However the Latin Grammys 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 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 individuals leaving the island, the inflow of rich traders trying to capitalize on its seashores and the private heartbreak of a world pop star watching all of it unfold. Unhealthy Bunny’s album is an oath of resistance, a promise to battle for a Puerto Rico that also belongs to its individuals — and it is struck a chord not simply with boricuas, however with a whole Latin American diaspora greedy for a house and tradition they will nonetheless declare as their very own. Unhealthy Bunny’s refusal to untangle perreo or plena from the lived realities of Puerto Rican and Latino communities might make DTMF the undertaking that lastly wins him a Latin Grammy in one of many foremost 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 Unhealthy 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 yr, 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 remember their friendship amidst the unending calls for of the music trade. The duo is up for album of the yr, report of the yr and track of the yr (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 youngsters’s music, amongst many others.)
It would not be the Latin Grammys with no nod of the cowboy hat to Edgar Barrera, the hitmaker who had essentially the most nominations of any artist in every of the final two years. He scored 10 nominations this yr, together with for producer of the yr and songwriter of the yr in addition to for his work on Karol G‘s tropimerengue “Si Antes Te Hubiera Conocido” and Shakira‘s scorching woman 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 in opposition to herself in a single class: Amongst sorceress-songstress Natalia Lafourcade‘s nominations are two for greatest roots track alongside collaborator El David Aguilar. Most of Lafourcade’s nominations — together with album of the yr, report of the yr and track of the yr — stem from her jazz-folk album Cancionera, although she additionally obtained a greatest 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 yr. Paying homage to Shakira and Lafourcade’s punk-laden perspective within the early 2000s, with colourful braids and heavy winged eyeliner, Joaquina turned the youngest individual to win greatest new artist on the Latin Grammys in 2023. This yr, her album al romper la burbuja delivered on her coming-of-age pop-rock promise and likewise earned her nominations for greatest modern pop vocal album and greatest singer-songwriter track.
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 a way followers could be impacted, too. Unhealthy Bunny lately informed i-D he isn’t bringing his world tour to the mainland U.S. out of concern that Immigration and Customs Enforcement might goal his concert events. It is doable the upcoming Latin Grammys will tackle a extra specific political tone than years previous, to match the method of its most-nominated artist.
