How Artists Like Bad Bunny & Rosalia Are Turning Non-English Music Into Grammy Recognition
Categoria: Musica
Multilingual music is no longer an outlier at the awards — and could become an even bigger presence this year.
Por Billboard | 02/10/2026
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. Related ‘Every Moment Is Massive and Magnificent’: Noah Kahan Reflects on a Monumental Year — And Eyes a Grammys Breakthrough Why Madonna, The Rolling Stones and Paul McCartney Could Be Grammy Dark Horses Stella Lefty Is 'So Dead' Over 'Saturday Night Live' Sketch Roasting the Debate Around Her Songwriting Credits 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