Bad Bunny winning album of the year at the Grammys wasn't just historic. It was political.

"On Sunday at the 2026 Grammy Awards, the Recording Academy bestowed its highest honor on Bad Bunny's "Debí Tirar Más Fotos," the first all-Spanish album in history to win album of the year. As the Los Angeles crowd erupted in applause, Bad Bunny appeared overcome with emotion, hunching in his chair and shielding his teary eyes with his hand. The lyrics to "DTMF," a song about seeking refuge in community, reverberated through the venue."

"It was a historic moment, but it was also, quite plainly, a political one. Voters chose to celebrate a musical love letter to Puerto Rico during a period of peak anti-immigrant messaging from the US government. President Donald Trump's mass deportation efforts have disproportionately targeted Latino communities, a recent UCLA analysis found, and in September, the Supreme Court lifted restrictions on racial profiling for Immigration and Customs Enforcement."

"For a proud Latino artist and native Spanish speaker to become the biggest winner on "music's biggest night" - and for him to make his acceptance speech largely in Spanish - is in itself an implicit yet firm protest. Even so, Bad Bunny did not stop at implicit. He called out ICE while accepting the award for best música urbana album earlier in the ceremony, pointedly doing so in English for maximum impact. "We're not savage. We're not animals. We're not aliens," he said."

On Sunday the Recording Academy awarded album of the year to Bad Bunny's Debí Tirar Más Fotos, the first all-Spanish album to win that honor. Bad Bunny appeared visibly emotional as lyrics from "DTMF," a song about seeking refuge in community, filled the venue. The win occurred amid intensified anti-immigrant messaging from the U.S. government, including mass deportation efforts and a Supreme Court decision lifting restrictions on racial profiling for ICE. Speaking Spanish in public now carries heightened risk of stops or detention. Bad Bunny delivered much of his acceptance in Spanish and publicly condemned ICE in English.

Read at Business Insider