Producers Tainy and MAG have indelibly formed Latin music, says visitor columnist Petra Rivera-Rideau, the creator of ‘Remixing Reggaetón’ and affiliate professor and chair of American research at Wellesley Faculty.
As anticipated, Unhealthy Bunny has essentially the most Latin Grammy nominations for his groundbreaking album “Debí Tirar Más Fotos,” together with all three of the highest awards: album of the yr, document of the yr and music of the yr. His album has acquired a lot fanfare for its creativity, politics and genre-bending sounds.
But with out taking away from Unhealthy Bunny’s shine, it’s price mentioning that albums are group tasks too.
In our forthcoming guide, “P FKN R: How Unhealthy Bunny Grew to become the World Voice of Puerto Rican Resistance,” Vanessa Díaz and I inform the tales of how Unhealthy Bunny collaborated along with his longtime producers Tainy and MAG to create among the greatest Latin music hits of our time. And but, neither Tainy nor MAG had been nominated within the class for producer of the yr.
How can it’s that the Latin Grammys neglected the very individuals who helped create one of many greatest Latin music juggernauts in historical past?
If we take a look at historical past, that is hardly shocking. In truth, I wrote about this identical conundrum in my guide “Remixing Reggaetón” 10 years in the past. I mentioned how reggaetón producers Luny Tunes had been equally neglected by the Latin Grammys in 2005. Luny Tunes composed the overwhelming majority of songs that dominated the airwaves that yr, with hits by main reggaetoneros comparable to Tego Calderón, Don Omar and Ivy Queen. They had been the masterminds behind “Gasolina,” Daddy Yankee’s music that arguably mainstreamed reggaetón. Shockingly, Luny Tunes didn’t obtain (nor have they ever acquired) a nomination for producer of the yr.
The Latin Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, the group that administers the Latin Grammys, was based in 1997 when Latin artists criticized the Grammys for excluding Latin music — and with good motive. The music business as an entire has lengthy underinvested in Latin music and musicians.
Nonetheless, LARAS itself has traditionally marginalized and excluded essential genres of music as nicely. For the reason that very first Latin Grammy Awards in 2000, artists from genres like reggaetón and música Mexicana have protested LARAS for dismissing their music, even supposing they’ve dominated the charts. In truth, this yr, música Mexicana group Fuerza Régida’s blockbuster album “111xpantia” didn’t obtain an album of the yr nod, one other main snub. This isn’t shocking, both, given the biases in opposition to the working-class immigrant communities that created genres like banda and norteña, and that paved the best way for Fuerza Régida.
Equally, reggaetón developed within the working-class barrios and public housing developments of Puerto Rico. The predominantly Black and working-class communities that created reggaetón had been additionally topic to classist and racist insurance policies within the identify of combatting crime. In truth, reggaetón itself turned related to legal exercise, prompting responses from artists together with Ivy Queen and Vico C’s “Somos raperos pero no delincuentes” (We’re rappers, not delinquents) and Eddie Dee’s “Señor Oficial” (Mr. Officer). Regardless of the mainstreaming of reggaetón, the style has by no means totally shed this repute — one that’s based mostly in racism and classism.
To that finish, Unhealthy Bunny followers could also be shocked to listen to that he has by no means gained a Latin Grammy outdoors of the city classes. “Un Verano Sin Ti,” arguably his greatest album earlier than “DTMF”, didn’t win the Latin Grammy for album of the yr although it was the primary Spanish-language album in historical past to be nominated for the corresponding class on the so-called gringo Grammys.
It’s no accident that essentially the most nominated songs on “DTMF” nominated for awards are these with dwell instrumentation and extra “conventional” appears like salsa, whereas the reggaetón producers who helped create them usually are not.
The exclusion of Tainy and MAG from producer of the yr regardless of their important work on “DTMF” (to not point out their different work, like on Rauw Alejandro’s album “Cosa Nuestra,” which can also be nominated for album of the yr) is only one extra incident in an extended historical past of slighting reggaetón.
On the coronary heart of this slight are the racism and classism that also permeate Latin media industries. If LARAS actually needs to dwell as much as its declare as a celebration of Latin music in all of its varieties, then Tainy and MAG must be nominated for his or her unbelievable, modern music that has propelled not simply reggaetón however Latin music to new heights all around the globe.
