Spanish pop singer Rosalía capped her breakthrough year by winning the top honour at the 2019 Latin Grammy awards.
Her album El Mal Querer, which fuses flamenco music with R&B and trap, was named album of the year as well as best contemporary pop vocal album. “Winning a Grammy is the best thing that can ever happen,” she said. “We did this album sitting on the floor, with two computers, a keyboard and a microphone. I swear to God. And then we worked on it for a year and a half. That was it.” Her reggaeton collaboration with J Balvin, Con Altura, won best urban song.
Another top prize, record of the year, went to Camila Cabello and Alejandro Sanz for Mi Persona Favorita, which also won pop song of the year. Song of the year went to Pedro Capó for Calma, performed in a duet with Alicia Keys at the ceremony in Las Vegas. The hit remix, which has had nearly 1.7bn views on YouTube and features Puerto Rican vocalist Farruko, won best urban fusion/performance.
Person of the year was awarded to veteran Colombian pop-rock star Juanes, who had three nominations across the record and song categories. His award was presented to him by Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich, who described Juanes as “mi amigo, mi parcero” – “my friend, my bro”.
Puerto Rican reggaeton superstar Bad Bunny performed alongside countrymen Ricky Martin and Residente, and won best urban album for X100PRE. “To my colleagues, let’s give it our all,” he said. “The genre has become about views and numbers but we have to bring different things to the table.”
Reggaeton is the most popular Latin genre today, generating billions of streams worldwide, but no reggaeton artists were nominated in the most prestigious categories of album, song and record of the year. The snub led J Balvin – the most streamed artist in the world on Spotify – to lead a boycott of the ceremony, writing on Instagram: “Without reggaeton, there are no Latin Grammys”. Other major artists such as Maluma and Daddy Yankee also boycotted the ceremony.