CALLE 13 WINS BIG AT LATIN GRAMMYS
Calle 13, a Puerto Rican hip-hop group with Pan-American music, rebellious politics and a raunchy sense of humor, triumphed at the 12th annual Latin Grammy Awards, which were televised Thursday from the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas. “Entren Los Que Quieran” (“Everybody Is Welcome”), the fourth Calle 13 album, was nominated for 10 awards this year, a record for the Latin Grammys. It helped that Calle 13’s eclecticism qualified its songs for multiple categories —Urban, Alternative, Tropical.
“Entren Los Que Quieran” is Calle 13’s second album in a row to be named Album of the Year; it won the same award for its 2008 album, “Los de Atrás Vienen Conmigo” (“Those From Behind Are Coming With Me”)
Calle 13’s “Latinoamérica”— a panorama of Latin American images, problems and perseverance, set to an Andean-rooted beat — was named Record of the Year (for the recording) and Song of the Year (for the songwriting). The band performed it to open the awards show, with the lead singer, rapper Residente (René Pérez), backed by a Venezuelan symphony orchestra conducted by Gustavo Dudamel.
Accepting one award, for Best Urban Album, Residente said, “It’s very difficult for us navigating against the current,” and vowed to keep making “true music.” Returning for the Best Urban song award, for “Baile de los Pobres” (“Dance of the Poor”), Residente added, “I know that we’re those who are heard not on the radio, but in the heart of the people.”
The show’s other major presence was Shakira, the Colombian superstar who was named Person of the Year by the Latin Recording Academy. She sang a ballad (“Antes de las Seis”), a rocker (“Devoción”) and a Latin dance tune, “Loca,” while out-shimmying the dancers around her.
She won the Best Female Pop Album award for her “Sale El Sol.”
This year’s Latin Grammy Awards show ratified Latin pop’s spreading crossover aspirations. Latin music is a coalition of national, regional and local styles, many of them aiming at different niche audiences. But musicians, marketers and the Internet have made musical boundaries far more porous over the last decade.
Latin pop has been cannily seeking crossover hits lately, bringing together performers from different countries and genres. The Best Pop Album by a Duo or Group with Vocal went to a multinational trio — Alex, Jorge y Lena — from Cuba, Spain and Colombia.
The Latin Grammys show re-enacted many studio collaborations onstage. Romeo Santos, a member of the Dominican-rooted New York group Aventura who has just released a solo album, sang alongside with the R&B singer Usher to introduce a bachata in Spanish and English, “Promise,” with both singers sustaining smooth high-tenor melismas, a bilingual urban crossover.
The Dominican-rooted New Yorker Prince Royce turned “El Verdadero Amor Perdona,” an earnest rocker by the long-running Mexican band Maná — which won Best Rock Album for its “Drama y Luz” — into a lilting bachata. Alejandra Guzmán, a Mexican rock singer, brought husky melodrama to her duet with the Venezuelan songwriter Franco de Vita, draping herself on the piano in “Tan Solo Tú”; he was a winner for Best Male Pop Album. The reggaetón duo Wisin y Yandel shared “Fever” with the reggae singer Sean Kingston. And Sie7e welcomed Taboo, a member of Black Eyed Peas, for a guest spot in “Tengo Tu Love.”
Sie7e, a Puerto Rican singer and songwriter who often tosses a few words of English into his breezy folk-pop songs, was named Best New Artist, although the album he released this year, “Mucha Cosa Buena,” is his third one.
Most of Pitbull’s “Rain Over Me”— with a rap that boasted “Latin’s the new majority”— was in English, with Marc Anthony singing the hook. The production numbers at the Latin Grammys often drew on Las Vegas revues, and Pitbull got a bevy of showgirls posing on chairs in bikinis. The productions didn’t always serve the songs. Marco Antonio Solís performed his aching ballad (and the theme song for the telenovela “Teresa”) “A Dónde Vamos a Parar?”— winner for Best Regional Mexican Song— amid a stage full of dancers unfurling parasols. Shakira had to contend with whooshing smoke machines that her microphone picked up.
Amid the crossovers, there were also regional holdouts like Pepe Aguilar, singing his “Canción Mexicana”— a homage to Mexican favorites — with a glittering mariachi band. But another regional mainstay, the accordion-driven Mexican-American band Los Tigres del Norte, won Best Norteño
Album for a collection of collaborations with musicians from across Latin America, embracing crossover. Among them was Calle 13’s Residente — who, at this year’s Latin Grammys, was the star among stars.
“Today music triumphed,” Residente said as he accepted the Album of the Year award.
Source: The New York Times
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