Rosalía has received Spain's 2026 National Award for Current Music, a €30,000 prize recognising LUX, released in 2025, and her wider international career. The jury called the album ambitious and new, and said it had transformed Spanish music.
Spain's Ministerio de Cultura announced the decision. The jury said LUX pushes creative boundaries and has won unanimous recognition from critics and the public. It also praised Rosalía's ability to build a personal sound across genres and eras, with distinct styles, bringing avant-garde ideas together with cultural heritage. RTVE and El País reported on the album, the €30,000 prize and the basic points in the official reasoning. El País identifies LUX as Rosalía's fourth studio album.
The decision recognises more than one successful release. The jury pointed to a wider career shaped by research and risk, alongside steady creative change. It credited Rosalía with helping Spanish music reach audiences around the world and cited her collaborations with other artists as part of the mix of experimentation and shared work behind its decision. ABC also highlighted her work across flamenco, jazz, folk, pop and academic music.
Rosalía began recording in 2017 with Los Ángeles. The album grew out of her study of flamenco and won the Premio Ruido from specialist music press as Spain's best album that year. With El mal querer in 2018, she built on those foundations through urban music and pop. The album drew international media attention, with Malamente becoming one of its best-known successes.
Her next major shift came with Motomami in 2022. The album won strong critical and public approval and added more honours to a career that includes two Grammy Awards and thirteen Latin Grammy Awards. One of those Latin Grammy prizes was Album of the Year for Motomami.
The jury was chaired by Javier Monsalve Iglesias, director general of Performing Arts and Music. Paz Santa Cecilia Aristu, director general of the Instituto Nacional de las Artes Escénicas y de la Música, served as vice-chair. Its members were Ana Belén Faus Guijarro, Nuria Sempere Comas, Isabel Villanueva Benito, Rubén Gutiérrez del Castillo, José Luis Sevillano Romero, Almudena Heredero Borreguero and Antonio Serrano, the previous winner of the award.
Rosalía now joins a list that includes Joan Manuel Serrat, Amaral, Luz Casal, Kiko Veneno, La Mala Rodríguez, Rozalén and Rodrigo Cuevas. Their awards place her within Spain's long-running recognition of artists working across contemporary musical forms.
The jury treated artistic risk as a sustained method, not a short-lived phase, and counted collaboration as part of the achievement. Spain's Ministry of Culture administers the award through the Instituto Nacional de las Artes Escénicas y de la Música (INAEM).
