The Latin Recording Academy’s Leading Ladies Announced & More Uplifting Moments in Latin Music

From career milestones and new music releases to major announcements and those little, important moments, Billboard editors highlight uplifting moments in Latin music. Here’s what happened in the Latin music world this week.

The Latin Recording Academy Announces 2023’s Leading Ladies of Entertainment 

On Tuesday (Aug. 29), the Latin Recording Academy announced their 2023 Leading Ladies of Entertainment honorees. This year includes Latin Grammy winner, Chilean singer-songwriter Mon Laferte; RondenePR founder Róndine Alcalá; Grammy-nominated engineer and vocal producer Simone Torres; and Ana Villacorta López, SVP of Marketing and Promotion at Sony Music México. 

“This diverse group of outstanding and successful women have made great contributions to Latin music,” said Manuel Abud, CEO of The Latin Recording Academy, in a press release. “We are proud to celebrate them with this and other initiatives that seek to promote gender parity and honor the important role women play in the entertainment industry.” 

The initiative was created in 2017 to recognize the “professional and socially conscious” ladies in the music field who have made “significant contributions and inspired the next generation of female leaders,” states the press release. The accompanying luncheon and private ceremony will be held in Sevilla, Spain on Monday (Nov. 13) as part of Latin Grammy Week. 

The Return of RBD

Latin music’s biggest pop group breaks its 15-year silence. For Billboard Español‘s latest cover, RBD — composed of Anahí, Dulce María, Maite Perroni, Christian Chávez and Christopher von Uckermann — talks all things tour, new music and shares the story behind their highly-anticipated reunion.

“All five of us have very different personalities, and with the years, we’ve learned to embrace our differences. But in the end, it’s when we come back together that this grows and this magic explodes,” Maite said. “The key is, back then, we came together as the result of an audition; this time, it’s something we chose to do.”

Special Awards at the 2023 Billboard Latin Music Awards

The Icon and Lifetime Achievement Awards recipients have been unveiled. At the 2023 Billboard Latin Music Awards, Ivy Queen will be honored with the Icon Award. Meanwhile, Los Ángeles Azules will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award. It was also announced that Ivy Queen and Los Ángeles Azules will perform during the awards ceremony, set to take place Thursday, Oct. 5.

Besides airing live on Telemundo, the show will air simultaneously on the Hispanic entertainment cable channel, Universo, Peacock, the Telemundo App, and throughout Latin America and the Caribbean on Telemundo Internacional. 

Bad Bunny’s Billion Spotify Streams

Bad Bunny is the latest artist to celebrate their streaming success by visiting Spotify’s newly launched Billions Club series. The Grammy-winning global superstar stopped by the series to enjoy a “Billions Brunch” with some of his closest friends and collaborators. “The feeling of having 1 billion streams for this song right now is the same emotion I felt when I got 5,000 plays for the first time,” Bad Bunny said. “For me, it’s just as big knowing that there are people who want to listen and want to enjoy what you make.”

“Tití Me Preguntó,” a track from his historic Un Verano Sin Ti album, officially reached 1 billion Spotify streams on Jan. 23. According to Spotify, Bad Bunny has 12 songs with more than 1 billion streams each on the platform — more than any other artist in Spotify history. He has accumulated 58 billion streams on the service, reigning as Spotify’s most-streamed artist of the year for the past three years.