How Artists Like Bad Bunny & Rosalia Are Turning Non-English Music Into Grammy Recognition
Billboard ·
Multilingual music is no longer an outlier at the awards — and could become an even bigger presence this year.
When Bad Bunny recorded DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS ( DTMF ), he wasn’t focused on commercial success — and Grammy nominations weren’t even a consideration.
“I said: I’m making an album in Puerto Rico, for Puerto Ricans,” he told Billboard in 2025. “I was perfectly happy to have it be successful in Puerto Rico … This one was for my own, for my family, for my friends.”
Of course, DTMF turned out to be far more than a family affair. The album propelled Bad Bunny to the top of the Billboard 200 (for the fourth time), and to headlining the Super Bowl Halftime Show, something only two other Latin acts — Jennifer Lopez and Shakira — have accomplished.
The icing on the cake was DTMF winning album of the year at the 2026 Grammy Awards, marking only the second instance in the awards’ nearly 70-year history that an album primarily in a language other than English won the category; the first was Stan Getz and João Gilberto’s seminal Getz/Gilberto , recorded mostly in Portuguese, in 1965.
What were once blips on the modern music timeline now feel like harbingers of things to come for 2027. Rosalía’s multilingual LUX — where the genre-defying artist sings in 13 languages, including Spanish, English, Latin and Mandarin — is generating buzz as a serious album of the year contender. Had BTS opted to submit to the Grammys, its Korean and English ARIRANG would almost certainly have also been in discussion, especially given that BTS became the first K-pop act to ever garner a Grammy nomination in 2021.
Both of these albums were unequivocal commercial successes: ARIRANG debuted at No. 1 on multiple charts, including the Billboard 200, Top Album Sales and Vinyl Albums , while LUX debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 and at No. 1 on five Billboard sales charts ( Top Latin Albums , Top Latin Pop Albums , Classical Albums , Classical Crossover and World Albums ). They reflect the broader globalization of pop music, with fans increasingly willing to consume music that is not in English or their native language.
As Luminate’s 2026 midyear report puts it, “The music ecosystem is undergoing a shift as the historical dominance of English-language tracks steadily declines.” In the United States today, according to the report, nearly one in 10 streams is of music in Spanish, and in the first quarter, casual listenership of music in Spanish reached 54%, higher than it’s ever been. In Europe, where markets are known for “borderless streaming diversity,” the most listened-to pop album so far this year is the bilingual ARIRANG .
“Passion for music discovery has always been there, but now it’s intensified and spread to casual consumers, expanding possibilities for artists worldwide. It’s a beautiful thing,” says Colleen Theis, president/COO of The Orchard, who has long worked with emerging markets around the world.
“People appreciate great artistry and long for a sense of community,” she adds. “These things transcend language. Artists that bring those elements together are drawing fans into their world more rapidly than ever. Rosalía’s LUX is an excellent example of an album that defies categorization and is an enduring work of art, and people responded accordingly.”
But while an enthusiastic and wider-than-ever audience may be listening now, the Grammys have long appeared inured to such outside influence. Other than Bad Bunny (who has been nominated twice) and Getz/Gilberto , only one other album primarily in another language has ever been up for album of the year. The 3 Tenors in Concert 1994 — featuring Plácido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti, José Carreras and conductor Zubin Mehta — was nominated in 1995 and drew ire in a year where no alternative or hip-hop artists received nods, leading to allegations that the Recording Academy was out of touch. Partly as a result, the academy’s nominating committees, comprised of knowledgeable voting members who were invited to deliberate on final nominees, were created — and for the next 22 years, those committees (whose membership was not public and who met privately) failed to nominate a single non-English language album or song in any of the four marquee categories.
Then came “Despacito,” which spawned a cultural revolution and was the most-streamed track of 2017. It was nominated in 2018 for three Grammys — including song and record of the year for its bilingual version featuring Justin Bieber — but won none.
The pendulum began to swing in favor of allowing the full membership to vote for finalists, and by 2021, the academy, now under the leadership of CEO Harvey Mason Jr., began a concrete, tangible effort to expand and diversify its voting pool. That year, it went back to allowing the full academy membership to decide the fate of the final nominations, eliminating most nominating committees altogether.
In the last two years alone, 4,900 new voting members joined the academy as part of its new membership model, introduced in June 2019, that aims to boost the number of women, people of color and people under 40 in the academy through each year’s new member class.
“Since transforming our membership model seven years ago, we’ve made it our ongoing mission to build an active and engaged voting body — one where every genre and craft is well-represented and that reflects the vibrant ecosystem of our creative community today,” Mason says. While Latin music is “an integral aspect of this evolution,” so are other genres and music made in other languages that might have been ignored by voters before.
Looking at Latin music in particular, it’s clear some concrete changes have resulted. Prior to Mason’s first outreach in 2019, fewer than a dozen Latin acts had performed live on the telecast in nearly 50 years. Then, in 2019, the show opened with a standout Latin medley featuring a slew of performers: Camila Cabello with Young Thug, J Balvin, Ricky Martin and Arturo Sandoval. Since, there has been at least one Latin performance per year and music in Spanish has become a normalized presence on the telecast.
That normalization seems to have now extended to the nominees and winners themselves. Rosalía, for example, drew plenty of attention when, in 2020, she became the first artist who sings in Spanish to garner a best new artist nomination (José Feliciano won in 1969, but for an English-language album). The following year, Anitta, who sings in Spanish, Portuguese and English, was nominated in that category. This year, no one would bat an eye at an album of the year nomination for the acclaimed LUX .
“In any given year, the outcomes on Grammy night truly come down to what resonates with our voters. While our efforts to ensure a well-represented voting body matter enormously, so does the music itself,” Mason says.
“It’s an undeniable moment in time where we are one world,” says Rebeca León, Rosalía’s former manager who now manages artists including Danny Ocean and Tokischa. “Rosalía made a great album, and may the best album win. Good music can be made in any corner of the world. And I hope it doesn’t stop with the Spanish language. We have to advocate for more.”
This story appears in the Oct. 3, 2026, issue of Billboard.