Q's With Bruno del Granado, CAA’s Latin Music Pro

null – Bruno del Granado
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Bruno del Granado’s been out past 2 a.m., hanging at Soho House’s Halloween party. Early the next morning, the head of CAA’s Miami office is up, looking at the news and thinking about how the 20th Annual Latin Grammy Awards will impact his team’s business. Coming of age at MTV Latin America, as well as spending four years running Maverick’s Latin Division and a decade managing Ricky Martin, the advocate who brought Bad Bunny to Coachella, and who reps Luis Fonsi, Maluma and Gloria Estefan, is attuned to cross-pollination. To him, music speaks; so the Latin Grammys are creating opportunities to expose music beyond the obvious.

With Martin, Roselyn Sánchez and Paz Vega slated to host, and Alessia Cara, Bad Bunny, Natalia Jiménez, Paula Arenas, Draco Rosa and Sebastian Yatra, as well as three generations of the iconic Jiménez family performing, the live from Vegas telecast is Latin Music’s “biggest night.” With fifty categories, from Sertejena Music and Portuguese Christian to Samba, Flamenco, Ranchero/Mariachi, Latin Jazz and more, it’s comprehensive and highly competitive.

Pollstar: Twenty years is a long time.

Bruno del Granado: When I think back to

the first Latin Grammys on CBS, it was an interesting concept. We didn’t have the level of superstars, but Juanes, this year’s Person

of the Year, shows what this can mean. When

I was at MTV Latino, he was in a band, a rocker, and we played his videos; he had that Ricky Martin thing, that charisma. He was at the first one, and now he’s won 28 Latin Grammys.

How important is this night?

In terms of music consumption and sales, it still moves the needle. And production values are on par with the Grammys. Top-notch production values make it a big look with massive reach. Not just in America, where in L.A., New York, Chicago, Houston, we will win the night, this goes around the world – to Mexico, Brazil, Spain, Chile, Colombia – via Univision, Telemundo, all the biggest networks.

What’s the perspective?

Mexico is the largest Latin market, with 120 million people. It’s the second-largest Spotify market. Sixty-five percent of the Hispanics in the U.S. are Mexican, or 60 mil-

lion according to the census, as well as another eight to 13 estimated undocumented, making the U.S. the second-biggest Spanish-speaking nation. At 60 million, is it

really a minority? Especially when it’s so young.

What’s the end goal?

In some ways, we’re preaching to the choir. But it’s also about those few million non-Latin viewers who are curious. Hoping the people checking the show out will keep exploring. Rosalía, who’s got five nominations, is someone to discover.

Sebastian Yatra is a singer-songwriter who, for lack of a better comparison, could be Shawn Mendes. For him, a strong performance could take him into the touring marketplace in the U.S. on a whole other level. Suddenly, he could come away in demand as a brand or have interest from Hollywood.

A Ricky Martin moment.

[laughs] For all of these artists, you’re hoping for what Ken Ehrlich calls “a watercooler moment.” For Juanes, who’s such a viable touring act, if he has an Aretha Franklin moment, it’s maybe films, scoring, something else.

Global domination…

[Martin’s] performance was 1999 – and people still point to it. They get it wrong, thinking it was “La Vida Loca,” but it wasn’t. “Cup of Life,” from the World Cup, had been No. 1 in 40 countries by the time the Grammy performance happened. Two billion people had seen it when he sang it in the summer of ’98 in France at the World Cup. He’d done it on 40, 50 TV shows, including “Top of the Pops.” He could’ve phoned it in, the song was so much a part of him, but Ricky never phones anything in. That performance shows what happens with the power of the Latin core and that Grammy connection.

Mainstream television.

For a Latin act, yes. “The Latin Grammys,” “Fallon,” “Kimmel,” artists will move everything to be there – because when they get in those rooms, things happen. People see them; we see the reaction.

How does that translate to touring?

Half the acts that perform are putting together a big tour, or see this as a platform to show people what they can do. Bad Bunny was the biggest Latin tour. He will show people why. Alejandro Fernández, Vincente Fernández – father and son, a legendary family with mariachi and pop albums, the father’s the Mexican Frank Sinatra – it’s the first time they’ve performed together [on tour], so there’s this family dynamic. For years, the son’s been trying to pull out of the father’s shadow, and now … Those things matter, both in terms of booking and making people want them.