Alaska and Lila Downs received Lifetime Achievement Awards alongside Francisco Céspedes, Daniela Mercury and Chichí Peralta in Las Vegas on 9 November 2026. Omar Alfanno received the Trustees Award, recognizing significant contributions to Latin music that need not come through performance.
Alaska, Francisco Céspedes, Lila Downs, Daniela Mercury and Chichí Peralta received the Latin Recording Academy’s Lifetime Achievement Awards at its 9 November 2026 ceremony in Las Vegas. Songwriter Omar Alfanno received the Trustees Award at the same event, Billboard said.
The Lifetime Achievement Awards recognize creative contributions of outstanding artistic value to Latin music. The Trustees Award recognizes significant contributions that need not come through performance—a distinction that extends the honors beyond artists’ work on stage or on recordings.
The recipients’ earlier work includes Céspedes’s 1998 song “Vida Loca,” for which he is known. Peralta’s De Vuelta al Barrio won the Latin Grammy for Best Merengue Album in 2001. Alfanno wrote “A Puro Dolor,” performed by Son by Four, which reached the Billboard Hot 100 and received a Latin Grammy nomination in 2000.
Alaska described a career spanning mainstream and underground music, chart success and self-released albums. Downs connected her recognition to childhood singing in Oaxaca and thanked Mexico for her identity, strength and stories. Céspedes said accompanying listeners’ romantic or intimate moments was the goal of his music.
Alfanno emphasized songwriters’ importance and urged them to create enduring songs rather than only hits. Mercury said her music celebrates her people, opposes discrimination and supports LGBT rights; she also voiced support for freedom and democracy and opposition to authoritarianism. Peralta described creativity as a process of trying, failing and starting again, and said technology would never replace its human essence.
At 81, Harrison becomes the prize’s oldest winner. He received the £50,000 (about $67,000) award and trophy at the London ceremony on 9 November 2026, for his novel about survival after an unexplained disaster.
The Latin Grammy gala is scheduled for 12 November 2026 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. Univision is scheduled to broadcast it live at 20:00 Eastern time [05:00 Yerevan time on 13 November].
3 min
The partners are developing theatrical films and streaming series from Jan Guillou’s Swedish spy novels, which have already inspired screen adaptations.
2 min
The game developer and publisher confirmed the cuts on 9 November, bringing its two rounds of layoffs this year to 59 positions.
2 min
