Despite Lack of Representation, Here Are the Latine Grammy Award Winners

It seems that year after year, we’re still asking for the same thing from the anglo television shows: more Latine representation. This was no different last night (April 3) at the 64th Annual Grammy Awards, where there were fewer Latine performers and attendees featured during the televised event. However, we did experience a few notable winners that deserve to be highlighted, despite their awards not being televised.

Overall, we had the representation of Filipino-Puerto Rican Bruno Mars, who won all four awards he was nominated for his R&B duo Silk Sonic with Anderson .Paak. Silk Sonic’s track “Leave the Door Open” cleaned house, winning Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Best R&B Performance (tied with Jazmine Sullivan), and Best R&B Song of the Year. Impressive, right? 

However, the iconic global star Bad Bunny was one of the other big winners of the night. While El Último Tour Del Mundo won the Best Música Urbana Album category, it wasn’t even televised despite him being one of the current most popular artists right now. Benito didn’t attend the ceremony as he was performing the closing show of his El Último Tour Del Mundo tour at the FTX Arena in Miami. But considering that this is his second consecutive Grammy award and that the specific album is the first all-Spanish language album to reach Billboard 200 to reach No. 1 in 64 years, it probably should’ve been considered for mainstream television. How cool would it have been for him to video in from Miami?

 

Other Latine winners include: Juanes’ Origen for Best Latin Rock or Alternative Album, Alex Cuba’s Mendó for Best Latin Pop Album, Vicente Fernandez’s A Mis 80’s for Best Regional Mexican Music Album (Including Tejano), Eliane Elias With Chick Corea and Chucho Valdés’ Mirror Mirror for Best Latin Jazz Album, and Rubén Blades y Roberto Delgado & Orquesta’s SALSWING! for Best Tropical Latin Album.

Although J Balvin didn’t win a Grammy, he did participate in the prestigious event. He presented an early and minimalistic performance alongside Maria Becerra for “Que Mas Pues?” He then transitioned for his solo performance on the Skrillex and Tainy-produced track “In Da Getto.” Morevoer, we got to see some clips of Cuban singer-songwriter Aymée Nuviola singing “La Gota Fría” before a commercial break, and Rachel Zegler’s participation on the Stephen Sondheim tribute alongside Cynthia Erivo, Ben Platt, and Leslie Odom Jr. Not shown on television, was also the Premiere ceremony performance of Mon Laferte, who sang “La Mujer.”

Cheers to all the Latine winners and here’s to hoping for more Latine representation next year!