Bad Bunny won big at the 2026 Grammys. It’s a boost at a dark time for U.S. Latinos

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The record that won album of the year at the 2026 Grammy Awards Sunday night — Bad Bunny’s “Debí Tirar Más Fotos” — is the one many industry experts labeled the most deserving, and therefore an unlikely candidate for victory.

In the same breath, the Grammys — not a place historically known for fervent political messaging — was filled with celebrities taking anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement stances. Of the nine televised awards handed out to seven different artists, nearly half addressed immigration in their acceptance speeches.

Both feel like a surprise. But it is no accident.

An evolving Grammy Awards

The Grammy Awards have long been criticized over a lack of diversity, with a history of artists of color, women, rap, Latino and R&B musicians being snubbed for top prizes.

In the past few years, however, that reputation has started to become challenged as the Recording Academy worked to add thousands of new voters across a variance of backgrounds. The results are notable: 3,800 new Recording Academy members were added in 2025. Half — 50% — are 39 and under, 58% are people of color and 35% identify as women. (Last year all Latin Grammy voting members were invited to join the Recording Academy, though it's not clear how many became Grammy voters.)

The 2025 Grammy ceremony seemed to reflect these changing dynamics as well, as Beyoncé and Kendrick Lamar won major categories. And in 2026, that trend appears to have continued.

Bad Bunny’s victory lap

Bad Bunny is one of only a few Latino album of the year winners, a short list that includes Santana in 2000 for “Supernatural” and Stan Getz and João Gilberto’s “Getz/Gilberto” in 1965.

“There’s so much amazing Latin music that has been overlooked and that’s part of what is so beautiful about this moment,” says Vanessa Díaz, co-author of “P FKN R: How Bad Bunny Became the Global Voice of Puerto Rican Resistance.” “And that’s why it feels like a win.”

By a number of metrics, “Debí Tirar Más Fotos” was 2025's most-streamed release, globally. But it is not only a commercial success story, it is an artistic one.

The album is a love letter to Puerto Rico that marries folkloric tradition in local Borinquen genres like bomba, plena, salsa and música jíbara with contemporary, internationally recognized styles like reggaeton, trap and electronic pop. That combination of new and old is something the Recording Academy has historically celebrated — looking at you, Bruno Mars' retro hooks — but to be recognized for an all-Spanish language release is uncharted territory.

The album is also political, but its messages are not exclusive to Puerto Rican or even Latino identity, says Albert Laguna, associate professor of ethnicity, race and migration and American studies at Yale. “The lyrics on this album align with global struggles,” he says. Take, for example, “Lo que le pasó a Hawaii” (“What happened to Hawaii”), a rallying cry for cultural autonomy in an era of neocolonialization.

Bad Bunny won with a career-defining album on the year of its eligibility — differing from Beyoncé's “Cowboy Carter” victory in 2025, which some viewed as the Recording Academy attempt to course correct after not awarding her the top prize in past years, like in 2017 when the decade-defining “Lemonade” was nominated, or 2023 when “Renaissance” was eligible.

In the case of Bad Bunny, the Recording Academy is meeting the pop culture zeitgeist where it is at, celebrating an artist at the peak of their popularity: Next week Bad Bunny will perform at the Super Bowl halftime show, an event that is gearing up to be a landmark moment for Latino culture.

It is also a powerful recognition of his talents at a time when some communities have voiced anxieties about even speaking Spanish in certain public spaces in the U.S. amid growing anti-immigrant sentiment and raids.

“A lot of people feel like this is a tense moment, it’s a difficult moment. And here’s someone giving us a sonic language in which to narrate this complex present,” Laguna says. “There’s pleasure, in political critique, that the music makes possible in a beautiful way. And I think that’s very much welcomed.”

Anti-ICE sentiment on stage

Anti-ICE sentiment permeated all corners of Sunday's Grammys as immigration enforcement surges in the United States.

During the CBS broadcast, Bad Bunny, Billie Eilish and first-time Grammy winner Olivia Dean used their time on screen to send a message. “No one is illegal on stolen land,” said Eilish. “(Expletive) ICE.”

“I’m up here as a granddaughter of an immigrant,” said Dean. “I am a product of bravery, and I think that those people deserve to be celebrated.”

But the comments actually began at the pre-televised Premiere Ceremony, in which 86 Grammys were handed out.

There, Shaboozey accepted his first Grammy with tears in his eyes. “I want to thank my mother … an immigrant in this country,” he said.

“Immigrants built this country, literally, actually. So, this for them,” he concluded. “Thank you for bring your culture, your music and your stories.”

Kehlani did the same: “Imma leave this and say, (expletive) ICE.”

Backstage, SZA similarly cursed ICE and stressed the importance of being able “to disseminate mutual aid.”

“I’m scared,” Gloria Estefan said backstage after winning an award. “There are hundreds of children in detention centers. … I don’t recognize my country in this moment right now.”

A historical precedent

Of the celebrities who elected to be vocal with their pro-immigration message, Bad Bunny's statements felt particularly poignant. Not long after joking with the Grammy host Trevor Noah about Puerto Rico's complicated relationship with the United States (He used air quotes when explaining the island's status as part of the U.S., a relationship described as a commonwealth but what many view as the world's oldest colony) he won the award for música urbana album and dedicated his speech to the current political moment.

“Before I say thanks to God, I’m going to say ICE out,” Bad Bunny said. “We’re not savage, we’re not animals, we’re not aliens. We are humans and we are Americans.”

The terms “animals” and “aliens” directly reflects the language President Donald Trump has used to describe migrants, as his administration dramatically expands immigration arrests nationwide.

Bad Bunny has been vocal in his opposition to Trump and his policies.

He also mentioned in an interview with i-D Magazine last year that concerns around the mass deportations of Latinos factored into his decision not to tour in the continental U.S. ( Hundreds of people have been detained in Puerto Rico itself since large-scale arrests began in late January 2025.)

Bad Bunny's use of “savage” in his speech, too, has historic precedent: Spain ceded Puerto Rico to the United States after the Spanish-American War in 1898 and political cartoons of the time frequently depicted Puerto Ricans as racially inferior, poor, and uneducated — in need of support from Uncle Sam.

In that context, his win feels particularly weighted.

“Our communities are being targeted. These winds right now that feel celebratory of the Spanish language, which is being literally criminalized — these winds, right now, for a community that is being targeted on such a deep level — it is a little bit of light,” Díaz says. “It is a little of faith that we can still carve out our place here.”