Speaking in Catalan and Spanish, Spain’s Rosalía picked up her first ever Grammy Award in the best Latin rock, urban or alternative category for her breakout album, El Mal Querer.
Given Rosalía’s extraordinarily visible year, it wasn’t an unexpected win, despite the fact that she had hefty competition with Bad Bunny’s X100Pre and Bad Bunny and J Balvin’s Oasis. What was definitely unexpected was a tie.
That happened in the best tropical album category, with both Marc Anthony (for Opus) and Aymee Nuviola (for A Journey Through Cuban Music) sharing the Grammy win.
A tearful Nuviola took the stage to accept, thanking her husband, who stood close by, and her indie label Top Stop. “I’m here representing my Cuban people,” said a visibly emotional Nuviola. “A journey through Cuban music was a big challenge for us because we have such great musicians.”
Hers wasn’t the only nod to tradition. The best regional Mexican album Grammy went not to albums of new music by successful (and excellent) artists like Joss Favela or Intocable, but to venerable Mariachi Los Camperos for De Ayer Para Siempre, a Smithsonian Folkways Recordings album.
In the pop category, the vote went more predictably to veteran and Latin Grammy favorite Alejandro Sanz for #ELDISCO, winning over Maluma, Sebastian Yatra, Ricardo Montaner and Luis Fonsi.
Latin artists netted another laudable win in the best contemporary instrumental album category, where Mexicans Rodrigo y Gabriela won for Mettavolution.
Stay tuned for Billboard.com's complete coverage of the 2020 Grammys, including our live Grammys pre-show that begins on Sunday (Jan. 26) at 5:30PM ET.
