Rubén Blades will receive the Billboard Icon Award at the 2026 Billboard Latin Music Awards, adding another major honor to a career that has stretched across more than five decades and helped redefine what Latin music, and particularly salsa, could sound like and say.
"I am grateful to everyone who has contributed for more than fifty years to making my work recognized today," Blades said. "No one succeeds without help." He specifically acknowledged the musicians, arrangers, composers, and engineers with whom he has worked, as well as Roberto Delgado and his orchestra, who have accompanied him for the past 16 years.
