Latin Grammy Awards Add New Categories for Regional Mexican and Electronic Music

In a bid to stay attuned to an ever-evolving musical landscape, the Latin Recording Academy has announced two new categories: best contemporary Mexican music album and best Latin electronic music performance.

After criticism arose in 2023 for a lack of representation for regional Mexican artists, especially within the top four categories, the Latin Academy is now paving a way for better recognition of the música Mexicana scene. The newly introduced best contemporary Mexican music album category will spotlight Spanish vocal or instrumental albums, requiring at least 51% new material while maintaining at least 60% of the essence of Mexican music genres.

Simultaneously, the Latin Recording Academy is embracing a new field of electronic music, introducing the category for best Latin electronic music performance. Songs apply, whether vocal or instrumental, that contain a minimum of 51% playing time of Latin electronic music genres, including remixes.

In addition to these new categories, several amendments to existing categories have also been made. These include a name change for the best MPB (Música Popular Brasileira) / MAPB (Música Afro Portuguesa-Brasileira) album category (adding the second acronym) in the Portuguese language field; and a definition amendment for the best singer-songwriter song category in the singer-songwriter field (for songs that contain at least 60% of the lyrics in Spanish, Portuguese or any native regional dialect; before that percentage was 51%).

There’s also new eligibility criteria for the best long form music video category in the music video field. “Eligible videos in best long form music category consist of at least 12 minutes of duration (reduced from 20 minutes),” the press release notes.

These updates are effective immediately and will be reflected in the upcoming 25th Annual Latin Grammy Awards taking place in November. For more info visit the Latin Grammys’ website.