Latin music

Latin music (Portuguese and música latina) is a term used by the music industry as a catch-all category for various styles of music from Ibero-America, which encompasses Latin America, Spain, Portugal, and the Latino community in Canada and the United States, as well as music that is sung in either Spanish and/or Portuguese. Because the majority of Latino immigrants living in New York City in the 1950s were of Puerto Rican or Cuban descent, "Latin music" had been stereotyped as music simply originating from the Spanish Caribbean. The popularization of bossa nova and Herb Alpert's Mexican-influenced sounds in the 1960s did little to change the perceived image of Latin music. Since then, the music industry classifies all music sung in Spanish or Portuguese as Latin music, including musics from Spain and Portugal. Following protests from Latinos in New York, a category for Latin music was created by National Recording Academy (NARAS) for the Grammy Awards titled Best Latin Recording in 1975. Enrique Fernandez wrote in Billboard that the lone category for Latin music meant that all Latin music genres had to compete with each other despite the distinct sounds of the genre. He also noted that the accolade was usually given to performers of tropical music. Eight years later, the organization debuted three new categories for Latin music: Best Latin Pop Performance, Best Mexican/Mexican-American Performance, and Best Tropical Latin Performance. Latin pop is a catch-all for any pop music sung in Spanish, while Mexican/Mexican-American (also to referred to as Regional Mexican) is defined as any musical style originating from Mexico or influences by its immigrants in the United States including Tejano, and tropical music is any music from the Spanish Caribbean. In 1997, NARAS established the Latin Recording Academy (LARAS) in an effort to expand its operations in both Latin America and Spain. In September 2000, LARAS launched the Latin Grammy Awards, a separate award ceremony from the Grammy Awards.