Eleven Nominees, One Trophy: The Latin Grammys' Best New Artist Race

Eleven artists, not the usual ten, will compete for Best New Artist at the Latin Grammys on Nov. 12 in Las Vegas. The category has a track record worth respecting: Calle 13, Karol G and Silvana Estrada all took it early. Recent winners include Venezuela's Joaquina, Bogotá's Ela Taubert and Mexico City's Paloma Morphy. This year's nominees come from Latin America, the U.S. and Spain. Four of them spoke to Rolling Stone.

Who is Aria Vega?

The Barranquilla singer is carrying Colombia's Caribbean coast (the Costeño region, whose sound she's pushing mainstream) into the category. She frames the nomination as collective property. "It represents my family, my people, my team, Barranquilla, and everybody who's believed in me along the way," Vega said. She frames it as an invitation, too.

Representation, for her, requires no strategy. "It's already in my accent, my humor, my music, my personality, and the way I see the world," she said. She met Shakira during the residency in Madrid and wants more. "Imagine two Barranquilleras in the studio together," she said. Her debut album, Costeñita Core, is in progress: personal, playful, feminine, "a little chaotic." Caribbean roots stay attached throughout.

What does Delilah's nomination mean for women in música mexicana?

Plenty. The Mexican-American singer calls the nod "a dream come true" and recognition from her peers at the Latin Recording Academy. She wants the genre's new generation to honor its roots while adding new sounds.

Her twin identity shapes everything. "You can hear it in the way I mix English and Spanish," she said. She doesn't separate the halves.

She opened for Natanael Cano at Estadio GNP Seguros in Mexico City, twice. She was the only woman to do it. "I don't feel like I have to change who I am or fit into a certain expectation to belong on that stage," she said. As a big sister, she takes the visibility duty seriously. Young women, she argues, don't need a mold.

How is Fabian escaping his father's shadow?

Fabian is the son of Peruvian icon Gian Marco, and his sister Nicole was nominated for Best New Artist in 2022. She cried when he called with his own nomination. Nicole is nominated twice this year, so Vegas becomes a family affair.

The project itself started in Los Angeles, where he moved from Lima at nine. He found no Spanish-language equivalent of the Anglo sounds he loved at festivals, so he built it. "I'm trying to create the kind of music I wish I had more of when I was growing up," he said. His debut album lands next year. He started the first demos in July 2025 and finishes in November 2026 — a pace he calls "insane." He's an album person, and hopes the format survives.

What drives Sofia Monroy's Morena?

The Mexican-Swedish nominee is up for her album Morena. She reads the nomination as validation of a nonlinear path: years of experimenting, making mistakes, trusting a small voice. "I think I'm a walking contradiction in many ways," she said of her two cultures. She stopped forcing coherence. The parts coexist.

Morena is heavier than a debut often is. It works through identity, belonging, grief, love, roots, and a relationship with death. It also reconnected her with her father, who died when she was young. The album's thesis, in her words: you can be many things at once and never have to choose.

Her ambitions are conventional — bigger stages, international reach, collaborations. Her metric isn't. Someone on the other side of the world recognizing themselves in a personal song: that, she said, is "quite extraordinary." On Nov. 12, one of these four — or one of the other seven — gets a once-only trophy that history says can matter.