{"id":292950,"date":"2025-06-14T15:04:05","date_gmt":"2025-06-14T15:04:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/uncategorized\/a-grammy-win-is-a-celebration-of-island-music-now-iradio-tt-blog-journal-appraisal-opinion-information\/"},"modified":"2025-06-14T15:04:05","modified_gmt":"2025-06-14T15:04:05","slug":"a-grammy-win-is-a-celebration-of-island-music-now-iradio-tt-blog-journal-appraisal-opinion-information","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=292950","title":{"rendered":"A Grammy Win is a Celebration of Island Music now \u2013 iRADIO.tt Blog + Journal: Appraisal, Opinion, Information"},"content":{"rendered":"


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An edited version of this article appeared in the March\/April issue of Caribbean BEat magazine as \u201cCaribbean Grammy glory<\/a>\u201c<\/em><\/p>\n

Caribbean music has been recorded since the early 1900s \u2014 Lovey\u2019s Original Trinidad String Band was recorded in 1912, five years before jazz was first recorded. Since that time, the industry of music in the islands, and the influence of music from these islands and its creators have made an impact on developing music genres in the Americas \u2014 jazz and hip hop figure prominently, as discussed in previous issues of Caribbean Beat<\/em>. Many island musicians look for ways to gauge the success of their music, their unique craft that can signal to the world that the musical output of Caribbean people has and deserves accolades beyond chauvinistic passion. Music awards are more than simplistic symbols of external validation, but act as markers for the burgeoning island industries and those artists that acknowledge their Caribbean DNA in their music, and their influence in a global music marketplace. The Grammy Awards are one such marker.<\/p>\n

The presenting body, the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences (NARAS), was founded in 1957, just one year after Harry Belafonte\u2019s Calypso <\/em>album became the US\u2019s first million seller outselling Elvis Presley that year, and changing the musical tastes of Americans forever, and the first Grammy ceremony was held in 1958. In the subsequent decades a range of regional genres have been recognised with golden gramophone statuettes within specialised categories.<\/p>\n

Traditional and contemporary Spanish-language island music genres and styles \u2014 bachata and merengue from the Dominican Republic, salsa and Afro-Cuban music from Cuba \u2014 have the Best Tropical Latin Album<\/strong> Grammy as a target, while reggaeton, Puerto Rico\u2019s gift to the world, has the recently-created Best M\u00fasica Urbana Album<\/strong> Grammy earmarked as a favoured award. Multiple winners Puerto Rican Bad Bunny, Panamanian of St Lucian descent Rub\u00e9n Blades, and Cuban Gloria Estefan, and more define island excellence. (Note that more than 50% of the Caribbean\u2019s 46 million people have Spanish as their first language, and 90% of all native Spanish speakers globally live in the Americas.)<\/p>\n

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