What does ‘Latin Grammy’ mean? How these prizes work and all the differences with the Americans

There are many myths about these awards, but the reality is that the goal to be achieved with the Latin Grammys is reward the best Latin musical works and, in turn, create a greater awareness of it within this cultural world. An industry rich in diversity thanks to the grain of sand contributed by each of the artists, both nationally and internationally, with their personality, their fusion of styles…

The Latin Grammy Awards are one of the most important awards in music, specifically Latin music. get this award provides visibility and greater credibility to the artist. In such a way that the singer and his entire team get more people to know them and that even his career takes off, if he has not already done so, in addition to opening new doors for them.

so get a recognition of this magnitude presupposes having achieved musical artistic excellence in the field for which it has been previously nominated. An award with which the skills of the artists and the entire tandem behind them are recognized and endorsed, thus achieving one of the greatest milestones of their professional career.

In addition, these important awards in the world of music include a total of 53 categories well differentiated. Some are very generalsuch as Record of the Year, Album of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best New Artist. To these must be added some 17 more, which take into account different areas, such as style or genre to which they belong: pop, urban, rock, alternative, tropical, regional Mexican, instrumental, traditional, jazz, Brazilian, classical and a long etcetera, to which other categories such as singer-songwriter, production and music video.

Since the Latin Grammys are one of the highest recognitions an artist can get in the music industry, the process to choose the nominees and winners is executed in a meticulous way. For this, it is important to remember that the Latin Academy only takes into account those works that have been publishedbetween the beginning of June of the previous year and the end of May of the current year; the rest of the songs and productions are left out of the list.

So the artists who have released their songs on these dates, along with their record companies, make a enrollment in the academy to be eligible for these awards. Later, the members of the institution, who are experts in creative and technical aspects of music, value the works presented. A task in which they allow artists to make delivery reviews presented in order to certify that they are legal and that they are located in the appropriate categories.

Afterwards, the team in charge of assessing the artists reflects on a template their votes, marking only those fields and categories for which they are considered experts. Although in this phase some specific committees also intervene, which are in charge of reviewing the votes of specialists and Latin American and US voters.

Finally, the most difficult and exciting moment of this process arrives: pick the winners. A final vote is made again and the names with the most votes are the ones that end up on the list of winners.

Differences with the American Grammys

The main difference between the Latin Grammys and the Grammy Awards is in the provenance of their audiovisual productions. The Latin Grammy allow productions from Latin America to be registered, Spain, Portugal and the United States. In this way, works from France, Romania and other Latin languages ​​are excluded. Instead, the Grammy Awards are more focused on Latin Americathat is, they only collect audiovisual productions from Latin Americans and the Latino population in the United States.

Another differentiating point that we could also mention is the number of categories, which changes significantly. The Grammy Awards collect around 90 categories, with all the additions and modifications that have been made in recent times; while the Latin Grammys have stipulated some 53 categories. In addition, and despite the fact that in both awards, the categories tend to be very similar, some nomenclatures may be different, although the purpose ends up being the same: to recognize and reward artistic quality.

It would also be interesting to note that the dates that are taken into account to assess the work of artists changes significantly in both prizes. Normally, and with few exceptions, the Grammys recognize only those works that have been published during the month of October of the previous year and the month of September of the current year. Something that contrasts with the period of the Latin Grammys, which runs from the beginning of June of last year until the end of May of the current year.