The 20th Annual Latin
Grammy Awards
“YOU HAVE TO TAKE RISKS,” SAYS GABRIEL ABAROA JR., PRESIDENT/CEO OF THE LATIN
RECORDING ACADEMY, OF THE EVENT THAT STAGES ITS MILESTONE CEREMONY ON NOV. 14
BY LEILA COBO
Sanz, who performed at the
Latin Grammys in 2017 alongside
“Dreamers,” is 2019’s top
nominee, with eight nominations.
Players
I
N 2000, THE INAUGURAL
Latin Grammy Awards, held at
Los Angeles’ Staples Center and
broadcast on CBS, became the
first bilingual TV show to air on
a primetime network — and capped a
pivotal year for Latin music on the main-
stream pop charts, led by crossover stars
Ricky Martin and Jennifer Lopez.
It was “the best investment the
academy ever made,” Michael Greene,
then-president/CEO of The Recording
Academy, told Billboard at the time. It was
Greene, Rob Senn and Michael Melvoin
of the academy who established The Latin
Recording Academy in 1997, and by 2002,
a board of trustees was in place.
The Latin Recording Academy has
since grown from roughly 1,500 mem-
bers and four staffers to 3,500 members
representing 36 countries and a full-time
staff of 28, and also includes its Latin
Grammy Cultural Foundation, established
in 2014. The membership of the academy,
which is headquartered in Miami, spans
music industry professionals in Spanish-
and Portuguese-speaking communities
around the world.
Now, in the academy’s 20th year,
the awards represent a diverse range
of nationalities, languages and subge-
nres, from Argentine tango to Brazilian
sertanejo. Nominees and winners are
chosen using the same voting process
as the mainstream Grammys, with two
distinctions: Latin membership is interna-
tional, and both U.S. and global releases
are eligible for consideration. This year’s
nominees are led by Alejandro Sanz (with
eight nominations), Rosalía (five), Fonseca
(four), Rubén Blades (four), Juan Luis
Guerra 4.40 (four) and Juanes (three).
The diversity of territories among
academy members occasionally has
contributed to controversy. In 2003,
academy president/CEO Gabriel Abaroa
Jr. moved the Latin Grammys from Los
Angeles to Miami for the first time — a
city where arguments raged over the par-
ticipation of Cuban artists at the show. “I
wanted to demonstrate that we could do
it,” he says now. “At the end of the day,
we Latins understand each other. But I
never imagined the scope of the project.”
The Miami move was one of the most
visible moments in the program’s devel-
opment, adds Abaroa, whose mission has
always been “overcoming the perception
that we were a secondary Grammy.”
During that year’s tribute to the late
Celia Cruz, a Cuban expatriate, Abaroa
began to understand the true impact of
the show’s legacy: “The band started to
play ‘La Vida Es un Carnaval.’ I started
to cry but I caught my breath. I still get
emotional today.”
Abaroa previews this year’s awards,
K which will be handed out Nov. 14.
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OCTOBER 12, 2019 • WWW.BILLBOARD.COM 7 3