NEW YORK (AP) — The Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny has redefined what it means to be a global giant — and he may once again make history at the 2026 Grammy Awards.
The artist born Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio is up for six awards at the Feb. 1 show, becoming the first Spanish-language artist to be nominated for album, song and record of the year simultaneously. His critically acclaimed album, “Debí Tirar Más Fotos,” is only the second Spanish-language record to be nominated for album of the year. The first? Well, that also belonged to Bad Bunny, 2022’s “Un Verano Sin Ti.”
Win or lose, experts say Bad Bunny's Grammy nominations mark a symbolic moment for Latinos. Just a week later, after all, he'll headline the Super Bowl halftime show.
Vanessa Díaz, associate professor of Chicano and Latino studies at Loyola Marymount University and co-author of “P FKN R: How Bad Bunny Became the Global Voice of Puerto Rican Resistance,” says Bad Bunny's nods extend beyond his own art and serve as a “very welcome recognition of Latin music that is growing.”
“Music from the Spanish-speaking Caribbean has been shaping global music tastes since the 19th century,” adds Albert Laguna, associate professor of ethnicity, race and migration and American studies at Yale. “Bad Bunny is another link in a much longer chain of the popularity of Caribbean music on a global stage.”
Much of this music — particularly Latin trap and reggaetón, the genres Bad Bunny got his start in and continues to use in his new work — has been historically criminalized in Puerto Rico, not unlike hip-hop in the United States. Reggaetón in particular, Díaz points out, “comes from the most marginalized communities in Puerto Rico. And so, the fact that Bad Bunny is receiving nominations in three main categories, and this is an artist who came up with trap … is the most groundbreaking thing about the entire situation.”
Petra Rivera-Rideau, associate professor of American studies at Wellesley College and co-author of “P FKN R,” says that element is particularly noteworthy because institutions often ignore marginalized genres — including at the Latin Grammys, a sister award show to the Grammys.
A victory in the major categories could have “profound, symbolic meaning,” she says. But with a caveat: “I’m interested to see if this is going to open doors for other people.” After all, Bad Bunny himself isn't immune to the Recording Academy’s institutional biases: He already has three career Grammys, but all have been in música urbana categories — despite the fact that he is the most streamed artist on the planet.
Across “Debí Tirar Más Fotos,” Bad Bunny and his producers weave traditional Puerto Rican folkloric styles into a hyper-contemporary context. Latin trap and reggaetón aren't abandoned but fused with música jíbara, salsa, bomba, plena and even aguinaldo, a kind of Christmas music, in “Pitorro de Coco.” While Bad Bunny’s previous albums also fused different genres — including bossa nova, mambo, rock, merengue and more — this album’s melange was more homegrown.
Laguna sees “Debí Tirar Más Fotos” as a direct challenge to the prevailing “formula for global pop stardom,” which he describes as an artist making it locally, gaining traction and then “watering down” their sound into something commercial and palatable for a global audience.
“Bad Bunny went in the opposite direction. It’s his most Puerto Rican album ever,” says Laguna. He hopes it will communicate to other artists that they, too, can look to their ancestry and history for artmaking.
“There’s so much amazing Latin music that has been overlooked and that’s part of what is so beautiful about this moment,” says Díaz. “And that's why it feels like a win for all Latinos.”
The timing of the album's release and recognition, too, feels consequential. “The U.S. has a history of othering Latinos, othering the Spanish language. … We’re in a moment where that feels extremely acute,” she continues. “For a community that is being targeted on such a deep level, it is a little bit of light, a little bit of faith that we can still carve out our place here.”
Latinos and the Spanish-speaking community in the U.S. have grown increasingly wary amid growing anti-immigrant sentiment and raids, as President Donald Trump’s immigration policies and executive actions have vastly expanded who is eligible for deportation and routine hearings have turned into deportation traps for migrants.
In an interview with i-D Magazine earlier this year, Bad Bunny mentioned 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.)
“The content of the lyrics — which are so steeped in the history of Puerto Rico, political histories, tourism and gentrification — there’s so much rich political and historical content,” Díaz adds. “This album is historic even without a Grammy win.”
But if Bad Bunny does win, Díaz says, it will be “akin to Halle Berry being the first Black woman to win an Oscar. That was a watershed moment. Or Rita Moreno being the first Latina to win.”
Beyond that, Laguna says the politics of the album are not exclusive to Puerto Rican or even Latino identity — “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.
Rivera-Rideau says one of the reasons “Debí Tirar Más Fotos” has resonated is not just the political implications of using folkloric music in addition to música urbana, but its sound. The traditional genres are “a lot more digestible” to listeners who embrace the antiquated taboos surrounding Latin trap and scoff at reggaetón's sexuality. As a result, the combination of sounds makes for an album that is “popular across generations,” she says.
But it only works because it is “musically really interesting. If it was just traditional music, and that's only what people cared about, it wouldn't have done as well as it did,” she explains. “Musically, it is super innovative and makes accessible a lot of these older genres that people in Puerto Rico listen to, but he’s been able to globalize these very local genres in a way that no one else has.”
That intergenerational appeal was a feature of Bad Bunny's landmark Puerto Rican residency, with the age and global diversity of its audience.
“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.”
The 68th Grammy Awards will be held Feb. 1, 2026, at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. The show will air on CBS and stream on Paramount+. For more coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/grammy-awards.
FILE - Bad Bunny performs during the iHeartRadio Music Awards, on Monday, March 17, 2025, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, File)
CRANS-MONTANA, Switzerland (AP) — About 40 people were killed and another 115 injured, most of them seriously, after a fire ripped through a bar’s New Year celebration in a Swiss Alpine resort less than two hours after midnight Thursday, police said.
Authorities did not immediately have an exact count of the deceased.
The Crans-Montana resort is best known as an international ski and golf venue, and overnight, its crowded Le Constellation bar morphed from a scene of revelry into the site of one of Switzerland’s worst tragedies. The country will hold five days of mourning.
Valais Canton police commander Frédéric Gisler said during a news conference that work is underway to identify the victims and inform their families, adding that the community is “devastated.”
Thirteen of the wounded were Italian citizens, and another six Italians are unaccounted for, Italy’s ambassador to Switzerland, Gian Lorenzo Cornado, told state-run RAI television.
Beatrice Pilloud, Valais Canton attorney general, said it was too early to determine the cause of the fire. Experts have not yet been able to go inside the wreckage.
“At no moment is there a question of any kind of attack,” Pilloud said.
She later said the number of people who were in the bar is “currently totally unknown,” adding that its maximum capacity will be part of the investigation.
“For the time being, we don’t have any suspect,” she added, when asked if anyone had been arrested over the fire. “An investigation has been opened, not against anyone, but to illuminate the circumstances of this dramatic fire.”
Gisler said the priority until further notice would be identifying the victims, and added that “this work will have to take several days.”
Axel Clavier, a 16-year-old from Paris who survived the blaze, described “total chaos” inside the bar. One of his friends died and “two or three" were missing, he told The Associated Press.
He said he hadn’t seen the fire start, but did see waitresses arrive with Champagne bottles with sparklers, he said.
Clavier said he felt like he was suffocating and initially hid behind a table, then ran upstairs and tried to use a table to break a Plexiglas window. It fell out of its casing, allowing him to escape.
He lost his jacket, shoes, phone and bank card while fleeing, but “I am still alive and it’s just stuff.”
“I’m still in shock,” he added.
Two women told French broadcaster BFMTV they were inside when they saw a male bartender lifting a female bartender on his shoulders as she held a lit candle in a bottle. The flames spread, collapsing the wooden ceiling, they told the broadcaster.
One of the women described a crowd surge as people frantically tried to escape from a basement nightclub up a narrow flight of stairs and through a narrow door.
Another witness speaking to BFMTV described people smashing windows to escape the blaze, some gravely injured, and panicked parents rushing to the scene in cars to see whether their children were trapped inside. The young man said he saw about 20 people scrambling to get out of the smoke and flames and likened what he saw to a horror movie as he watched from across the street.
One of the people unaccounted for was an Italian, Giovanni Tamburi, whose mother Carla Masielli issued an appeal for any news about her son and asked the media to show his photo in hopes of identifying him, according to RAI.
“We have called all the hospitals but they don’t give me any news. We don’t know if he’s among the dead. We don’t know if he’s among the missing,” she wailed. “They don’t tell us anything!”
The injured were so numerous that the intensive care unit and operating theater at the regional hospital quickly hit full capacity, said Mathias Reynard, head of the regional government of the Valais Canton.
“This evening should have been a moment of celebration and coming together, but it turned into a nightmare,” said Reynard.
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani was planning to go to the site on Friday given the significant number of Italians involved.
Three of the wounded were being transported from the Sion hospital in Switzerland to Milan’s Niguarda, the Italian civil protection agency said.
In a region busy with tourists skiing on the slopes, the authorities have called on the local population to show caution in the coming days to avoid any accidents that could require medical resources that are already overwhelmed.
With high-altitude ski runs rising around 3,000 meters (nearly 9,850 feet) in the heart of the Valais region's snowy peaks and pine forests, Crans-Montana is one of the top venues on the World Cup circuit. The resort will host the best men’s and women’s downhill racers, including Lindsey Vonn, for their final events before the Milan-Cortina Olympics in February. The town's Crans-sur-Sierre golf club stages the European Masters each August on a picturesque course.
The Swiss blaze on Thursday came 25 years after an inferno in the Dutch fishing town of Volendam on New Year’s Eve, which killed 14 people and injured more than 200 as they celebrated in a cafe.
Swiss President Guy Parmelin, speaking on his first day in office, said many emergency staff had been “confronted by scenes of indescribable violence and distress.”
“This Thursday must be the time of prayer, unity and dignity,” he said. “Switzerland is a strong country not because it is sheltered from drama, but because it knows how to face them with courage and a spirit of mutual help.”
Dazio reported from Berlin and Leicester reported from Paris. Geir Moulson in Berlin and Graham Dunbar in Geneva contributed to this report.
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This story has been corrected to fix the spelling of the name of Mathias Reynard, head of the regional government of the Valais Canton.
A floral tribute left near the area where a fire broke out at the Le Constellation bar and lounge during New Year's celebration, in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. (Jean-Christophe Bott/Keystone via AP)
A hearse car drives as police officers inspect the area where a fire broke out at the Le Constellation bar and lounge during New Year's celebration, in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. (Jean-Christophe Bott/Keystone via AP)
Police officers inspect the area where a fire broke out at the Le Constellation bar and lounge leaving people dead and injured, during New Year’s celebration, in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. (Jean-Christophe Bott/Keystone via AP)
Police officers inspect the area where a fire broke out at the Le Constellation bar and lounge leaving people dead and injured, during New Year’s celebration, in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. (Jean-Christophe Bott/Keystone via AP)
From left, Mathias Reynard, State Councillor and president of the Council of State of the Canton of Valais, Stephane Ganzer, State Councillor and head of the Department of Security, Institutions and Sport of the Canton of Valais, Frederic Gisler, Commander of the Valais Cantonal Police and Beatrice Pilloud, Attorney General of the Canton of Valais during a press conference in Lens, following a fire that broke out at the Le Constellation bar and lounge leaving people dead and injured, during New Year’s celebration, in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. (Alessandro della Valle/Keystone via AP)
Police officers inspect the area where a fire broke out at the Le Constellation bar and lounge leaving people dead and injured, during New Year’s celebration, in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. (Jean-Christophe Bott/Keystone via AP)
From left, Mathias Reynard, State Councillor and president of the Council of State of the Canton of Valais, Stephane Ganzer, State Councillor and head of the Department of Security, Institutions and Sport of the Canton of Valais, Frederic Gisler, Commander of the Valais Cantonal Police, Beatrice Pilloud, Attorney General of the Canton of Valais and Nicole Bonvin-Clivaz, Vice-President of the Municipal Council of Crans-Montana during a press conference in Lens, following a fire that broke out at the Le Constellation bar and lounge leaving people dead and injured, during New Year’s celebration, in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. (Alessandro della Valle/Keystone via AP)
A skier walks in the area where a fire broke out at the Le Constellation bar and lounge leaving people dead and injured, during New Year’s celebration, in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. (Alessandro della Valle/Keystone via AP)
A banner stating that fireworks are prohibited due to the risk of fire is pictured near the area where a fire broke out at the Le Constellation bar and lounge leaving people dead and injured, during New Year’s celebration, in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. (Alessandro della Valle/Keystone via AP)
Police officers inspect the area where a fire broke out at the Le Constellation bar and lounge leaving people dead and injured, during New Year’s celebration, in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. (Alessandro della Valle/Keystone via AP)
Police officers inspect the area where a fire broke out at the Le Constellation bar and lounge leaving people dead and injured, during New Year’s celebration, in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. (Alessandro della Valle/Keystone via AP)
Police officers inspect the area where a fire broke out at the Le Constellation bar and lounge leaving people dead and injured, during New Year’s celebration, in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. (Alessandro della Valle/Keystone via AP)
Police officers inspect the area where a fire broke out at the Le Constellation bar and lounge leaving people dead and injured, during New Year’s celebration, in Crans-Montana, Swiss Alps, Switzerland, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026. (Alessandro della Valle/Keystone via AP)
