A case for keeping Latin music categories

Each year at Grammy time, the Recording Academy renews its vow to remain relevant, to make sure that the honors keep pace with the always shifting sands of the musical terrain and to give only awards that are meaningful.

But having expanded from 28 award categories in 1958 to a record 108 this year, it’s easy to wonder how meaningful each of those statues can really be.

In Latin music, it’s gone from famine -- it took 18 years before there was even a single Grammy category for Latin music -- to feast, with six categories in the regular Grammy ceremony as well as 39 categories in the most recent Latin Grammy Awards, launched in 1999 as the first spinoff from the main event.

It raises the question: If the Latin Grammys now cover the hemisphere from New York to Buenos Aires and genres from samba to flamenco, is there still a need for the six categories in the regular Grammy Awards?

What may seem a reasonable question on the surface becomes a flashpoint for anyone who knows what’s really behind it.

“We’re talking about two entirely different universes,” says Gabriel Abaroa, head of the Latin Recording Academy.

Specifically, the domestic Grammy honors only music released in the U.S. The Latin Grammy is an international award that covers all music made in Spanish and Portuguese, no matter where it’s from.

So although the music often overlaps, the scope of the awards is vastly different.

To drop the six Latin categories within the main Grammy competition would mean ignoring the contributions of Latino musicians in the U.S. It’s too late for that. Today, Latinos are an integral part of America’s cultural fabric and deserve to keep their place in the mainstream.

From the very start, the Grammys have highlighted homegrown Latin acts that might otherwise have gone unheralded by the mainstream. The very first Grammy in Latin music was awarded in 1975 to Eddie Palmieri, the New York-based salsa pianist, for his milestone album, “The Sun of Latin Music.” More recently, L.A.’s own Ozomatli earned Grammys in 2001 and 2004 in the Latin rock category, in which the group is nominated again this year.

Likewise, the Latin Grammys have highlighted great music from other countries that may have gone unnoticed in the U.S., such as Colombia’s Juanes or Spain’s Bebe.

“Forget whether it’s fair or unfair or if it makes sense or it doesn’t,” Abaroa says. “I think it’s just about giving all the possible opportunities to music and its creators.”