Karol G, Rosalía are among the most-nominated artists at the 2026 Latin Grammys

Rosalía performs at Madison Square Garden in New York during her Lux Tour, June 17, 2026. (The New York Times)

By PAULA MEJÍA

Four wildly distinct artists — Colombian superstar Karol G, virtuosic Spanish experimentalist Rosalía, mischievous Argentine pair Ca7riel and Paco Amoroso, and Uruguayan pop artist Jorge Drexler — each notched seven Latin Grammy nominations before the 27th annual awards.

Announced Wednesday by the Latin Recording Academy, the heavy-hitters of the 2026 Latin Grammy race, all of whom are competing for album of the year, are being recognized for music that doesn’t hew neatly to a specific genre.

Karol G, who became the first Latin woman to headline Coachella this year, was recognized in several categories on the heels of her 2025 album “Tropicoqueta.” The musician, born Carolina Giraldo Navarro, has said that the album is an ode to the multitudinous sounds — including vallenato, dembow, cumbia, reggaeton and ranchera — that have shaped her love of music.

She also received three nominations in genre categories: urban performance, for “Dile Luna,” which features Panamanian reggae vocalist Eddy Lover; reggaeton performance, for “Verano Rosa,” a collaboration with Colombian producer-songwriter Feid; and regional song, for “Ese Hombre Es Malo,” which saw her taking on elements of música mexicana, like mariachi.

Rosalía, the classically trained Spanish star who wielded her artistic unpredictability on “Lux,” also garnered seven nominations. For the album inspired by the lives of multiple saints, the singer sang in 13 languages, including Arabic, German and Sicilian, while using enough Spanish, Catalan and Portuguese — at least 60% of the project’s lyrics — to meet eligibility requirements for album of the year. Her track “La Perla,” a plucky collaboration with Yahritza y Su Esencia that takes to task an “emotional terrorist” of a lover, earned nominations for best pop song, song of the year and record of the year.

Impish Argentine group Ca7riel and Paco Amoroso, whose steady ascent includes — as the band recently teased — an involvement with the much-anticipated Grand Theft Auto VI video game, and the duo performing in support of Harry Styles’ tour, nabbed seven nominations. In yet another nod to the widening global expression of Latin music, the duo flits between bossa nova, funk, hyperpop, smooth jazz and hip-hop on their 2026 album “Free Spirits,” in which occasionally goofy lyrics belie deeper meditations on fame and dissatisfaction. The LP features infant-sounding backing vocals from actor and musician Jack Black on the appropriately titled track “Goo Goo Ga Ga.”

Uruguayan experimentalist Jorge Drexler earned seven nominations for his 2026 album “Taracá.” His “¿Cómo Se Ama?”, a shape-shifting track that snaps from a woozy acoustic number into a kinetic beat, will contend for both song and record of the year. A former physician who pivoted to music, Drexler won an Academy Award in 2005 for best original song for “Al Otro Lado del Río,” which appeared in the film “The Motorcycle Diaries.”

Mon Laferte, the Chilean-Mexican pop iconoclast, and Mexican singer-songwriter Silvana Estrada garnered six nominations each, including album of the year.

The top nominee, as he has been for three of the last four years, was hit-making songwriter and producer Edgar Barrera, with 10 nominations. One of Latin music’s preeminent architects, Barrera will effectively compete against himself in several categories, including song of the year, where two tracks he helped write — “Coleccionando Heridas” by Karol G and Marco Antonio Solís, and “Mi Gran Amor” from Santana featuring Becky G — are nominated.

He is also nominated for album of the year for his production of “Tropicoqueta” and “Muda,” the 2026 album from Carin León, who this month became the first Latin musician to headline a residency at the Sphere in Las Vegas.

Also vying in that competitive race are Brazilian pop artist Anitta, for “Equilibrivm”; Venezuelan cohort Rawayana, for their shimmering “¿Dónde Es El After?”; and Argentine rapper Milo J’s down-tempo folk offering, “La Vida Era Más Corta.”

Manuel Abud, CEO of the Latin Recording Academy, said the genre-blurring variety of the album of the year category in particular reflected the evolving direction of Latin music.

“It’s our job to keep up with them, not to try to put them in a box,” he said of the artists. “On the contrary: We need to keep adapting the box.”

After several years of adding categories in an attempt to better account for the vast subgenres within Latin music, this year’s awards will remain steady at 60.

The surging popularity of regional genres like música mexicana on streaming platforms has helped drive Latin music’s growth worldwide alongside major pop culture events, such as Bad Bunny’s galvanizing Super Bowl halftime performance this year, according to a report from the research group Luminate. The same report noted that almost 1 in 10 songs streamed in the United States during the first six months of this year was sung in Spanish.

For the second year in a row, the ceremony will take place in Las Vegas at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. It will air on Univision on Thursday, Nov. 12.