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Shakira ganó 5 Premios MTV Latinos 2002

  Friday, Oct 25, 2002
The Miami Herald
Tomado de la edición Digital: www.miami.com/mld/miami

Inevitable: Latin video award show rocks house
By JORDAN LEVIN AND LYDIA MARTIN
jlevin@herald.com
BIG WINNER: Latin pop princess Shakira took home five MTV Latin America video awards.
 
BIG WINNER: Latin pop princess Shakira took home five MTV Latin America video awards.

As if to show they really meant it, MTV Latin America opened its first awards show with the big guns -- the Rolling Stones -- greeting the audience on video, in Spanish. Next came legendary guitarist and pioneering crossover star Carlos Santana, performing The Game of Love with Michelle Branch.

But from then on, the show was all about Latin America claiming rock music for its own. The spectacle, broadcast live on MTV2 and MTV Latin America from Miami Beach's Jackie Gleason Theater, seemed positively high on the sheer volume of talent on stage -- with no condescending glorification of Latin culture, just a straight-ahead celebration of music.

When Mexican metal rappers Molotov blasted the Gleason with their churning brand of hard-core rock and rap, only to be joined by Colombian singer Juanes hitting the guitar hard on Mala Gente, no explanation was needed.

Instead of her usual exotic showgirl shimmy, Shakira -- who was to capture five awards -- belted out Inevitable, its powerful guitar and distinctive voice striking a hard musical argument for her as a star.

Despite the stage hoopla, the winners -- chosen via online votes by fans -- represented a fairly conventional set of pop tastes.

Shakira's awards included Artist of the Year and Best Female Artist, for the Spanish songs on her mostly English-language Laundry Service.

Cure-esque Chilean group La Ley won Best Rock Artist and Best Group of the Year. Colombian rocker Juanes picked up Best Male Artist on the strength of his hit A Dios Le Pido (I'll Ask God), and Argentine singer-songwriter Diego Torres, whose anthem Color Esperanza (Color of Hope), has made him an idol in his troubled home country, won Best Artist Southeast.

Torres injected a serious note. ''We're the only ones who can change the destiny of Latin America,'' he said after receiving the award.

Backstage, Santana gave props to Latin America's hard rockers. ''I like Molotov; I like the bands that do music that is raw,'' he said in perfect Spanish, a language one rarely hears him speak. ``I'm 55, but I like music to be raw, like an egg.''

There was plenty of fun made of hapless Anglos who didn't speak Spanish and the way North America looks down on South America. Argentine TV personality Mario Pergolini and Mexican actor Diego Luna, the co-hosts, started with a skit in which they confronted INS ''agents'' who chased them into the theater, where they asked a confounded Nick Carter, of the Backstreet Boys: ``Hey man, where's Britney Spears?''

Backstage, Carter -- speaking through an interpreter -- promised to do better. ''I'm going to start studying Spanish,'' he said. ``Next time I come here, I don't want to miss anything.''

The MTV Video Music Awards Latin America will be rebroadcast at 8 p.m. Nov. 1 on MTV.

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