Boycott Univision (Premios Lo Nuestro a La Musica Latina)

Last night I sat through almost four hours of complete and total torture. You might ask yourself what am I talking about and why am I writing it here. Well, I'm referring to this years "Premio Lo Nuestro a la Musica Latina". As always, the "Premios" are something I look forward to. I mean, before the Latin Grammy's this is all we had! The entire week I was anxiously waiting for Thursday, the big day. However, it turned out to be a great disappointment. A disappointment from all aspects of the show. Ranging from technical problems to performances to the hosting.

However, my biggest disappointment of the night was the lack of a true representation of the Latinos. First of all, let me start off by saying that most performers of the night were from Mexico. To mention a few: Thalia, Marco Antonio Solis, Graciela Beltran, Pablo Montero, and Akwid. Not to mention the host himself who is from Mexico. There was only one performance representing for the "tropical" category (La India) and therefore limiting the possibility of representing someone from Colombia or Dominican Republic for example. Another big "oops" was the fact that they decided to actually "present" most of the awards for the "regional Mexicana" category while most of the "tropical" categories were not given on screen but were listed right before a commercial break. I mean don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Mexico or anyone from Mexico. I just find it a little unfair that the awards program was not representative of ALL Latinos in this country or that are played on the radio stations.

Not to mention the fact that some of the awards given were not consistent (to my knowledge). Just to mention a few: Lets take the winner for "major album tradicional del aсo" Monchy and Alexandra. Now, this duo has not had a new CD in several years and I know for a fact (as an avid radio listener) that the other groups nominated (Aventura, Nueva Era and Elvis Martinez) were more "popular" than Monchy & Alexandra. How about Artista masculino del aсo in the tropical category. The winner was Marc Anthony. Now, he has not had a CD since Libre, which was released several years ago. While he is a great artist, I think Gilberto Santa Rosa deserved that this year. He's definitely been more active. How about Mejor cancion del aсo in the tropical category. Again, Marc Anthony was the winner with his song "barco a la deriva". I listen to the radio A LOT and I cannot say that this song was ever played or therefore requested. As a matter of fact, I can safely say that that any of the other nominated songs could have won over this one. I mean, who doesn't know "Seduceme" by La India?? And lastly, let me mention the Urbana category. In subcategories, "album del aсo" and "interpretacion del aсo" Tego Calderon was nominated. The winner was El General. For both! C'mon, El General hasn't had a hit since "Tu Pun Pun". No not really. But Tego was the biggest hit in this type of music since Vico C! When giving out the awards for these two categories, you can here the people chanting "Tego! Tego! Tego! To everyone's disappointment, he was not the winner. You can say that the winners won "fair and square" because the audience voted themselves on univision.com.

However, think about this: this might not be a good indication of whom the winners should have been. First of all, not everyone knows about every song, every artist in all the categories. So someone who might have gone to vote may know whats "good" and whats not in the Regional Mexicana category but have no idea whats going on the Urbana category. This person will just choose anyone or someone they've heard of for this category. I don't think this is fair for any category. Also, people who decide to vote may vote for an artist just because he or she is their favorite artist not necessarily because their work was any good this past year. As you can see, there are many flaws to using this method of "voting".

So what am I petitioning here? I petition for a complete boycott of Univision and a "makeover" of Los Premios Lo Nuestro a la Musica Latina. I know I'm not the only one who agrees. Check out the "foros" at univision.com for yourself. It is absolutely imperative that Univision takes action for next years show and represents for all Latinos. Please sign this petition and pass it along to all your family and friends who feel the same. Lets demonstrate to Univision that a proper representation of the Latino community is due. I myself have vowed not to watch anything on Univision and I plan on keeping that promise indefinitely until changes are made. LETS MAKE A DIFFRENCE!