When Harry Kinds took house the Grammy for album of the 12 months on the 2023 ceremony, his fellow nominee, Dangerous Bunny, didn’t suppose he had been snubbed. And why would he? His album, the chart- topping “Un Verano Sin Ti,” was already a giant winner in a number of methods: It was the primary Spanish-language album ever to be nominated within the prime class, and it was additionally probably the most commercially profitable report of 2022, in accordance with IFPI, making him the primary Latino to obtain that commerce group’s International Chart Award.
Nonetheless, his notion of the loss stated lots: “Perhaps they weren’t prepared for a Spanish-language album to win the large prize,” he informed Self-importance Truthful the next 12 months. “I didn’t even really feel like [album of the year] had been stolen from me till the media began saying [it], and I noticed that everyone thought I deserved the prize and everyone thought it was a theft… That’s after they type of satisfied me and I stated, ‘Effectively, sure, it was a theft then.’”
Together with his newest effort, the 17-song “Debí Tirar Más Fotos,” Dangerous Bunny has as soon as once more notched a best-selling album. However this time, the mission represents the strongest inventive and political assertion he’s made thus far, targeted on his house of Puerto Rico. It’s additionally arguably his most bold and far-reaching mission, incorporating his personal high-speed and raunchy reggaeton with visible and lyrical references to the area’s wealthy and sophisticated historical past.
Every tune on the album obtained an identical music video containing historical past classes on matters just like the impacts of colonialism and its debt crises. The mission additionally acts as a cultural preservation effort, spotlighting a heritage lengthy threatened with erasure.
In latest information, the streaming juggernaut has been tapped to headline the 2026 Tremendous Bowl Halftime Present — a transfer that’s ignited fierce debate. Whereas many are applauding the milestone, detractors argue that choosing an artist who performs primarily in Spanish is ill-suited for an occasion they view as quintessentially American.
Past questions of language, the choice is being learn as an inherently political act, unfolding towards a backdrop of escalating tensions affecting the Latin group — and marginalized teams extra broadly — throughout america.
That brings us to a strikingly pointed query this upcoming Grammys season: Will the voters comply with swimsuit and award its highest honor to a politically-charged Spanish-language album? Or will it retreat from the cultural shift now unfolding on the nationwide stage?
Judging by latest historical past, a nomination appears probably, however a win remains to be an extended shot.
At this level, Dangerous Bunny has infiltrated American popular culture sufficient to be recognizable to the common Grammy voter. (In 2022, an nameless Grammy voter informed Selection they believed few individuals knew who the rapper and reggaeton star was, and subsequently, few individuals would vote for him in comparison with the opposite nominees.) He’s been a recurring face on “Saturday Night time Stay” — and can host this season’s opener tomorrow night time (Oct. 4) — and has starred in a number of U.S.-produced movies and have become the face of Adidas. But none of that ensures voters will transfer previous the language barrier to interact with the complete depth of his work.
After all, his likelihood is greater with the Latin Recording Academy voters: He’s the most-nominated act on the upcoming awards present in November. The group historically favors Latin legends with many years within the business for the large classes, though in 2022, the 12 months of “Un Verano Sin Ti,” it was Rosalía’s revolutionary “Motomami” that claimed the Latin Grammy for greatest album, leaving Dangerous Bunny shut out from that prime honor as nicely.
There stays a lingering uncertainty about the place he matches in and the way he must be acknowledged inside these two organizations, that are well known as handing out the highest honors of their fields. To relegate him solely to the Latin Grammys not feels correct — not when his excursions commonly fill U.S. stadiums (although he purposefully ignored the U.S. on his huge “Debí Tirar Más Fotos” tour on account of ongoing ICE raids, and the Trump Administration has stated brokers can be on the Tremendous Bowl), and his music commonly dominates world charts, resonating deeply with hundreds of thousands of Spanish-speaking listeners in a rustic the place Latinos are actually the most important racial or ethnic minority.
Between mainstream visibility and institutional validation, there’s nonetheless an unstated expectation that he should show himself inside a framework acquainted to a largely English-speaking voting base.
If the Grammy for album of the 12 months remains to be handled as the final word marker of mainstream acceptance, then it’s truthful to ask: Ought to Dangerous Bunny nonetheless care about profitable it?
And at a time when the Recording Academy has labored laborious to deliver again artists who felt they’d been snubbed prior to now, if it’s going to appoint him, then voters have a accountability to familiarize themselves with this album — and all others — far past a cursory needle-drop.
