Finalists announced for Billboard Mexican Music Awards
The contenders for the first annual Billboard Mexican Music Awards have been announced, with singer Gerardo Ortiz leading the way.
Ortiz has been nominated in ten different categories for the awards show, which will take place at the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles in October.
He is one of several rising stars of the Mexican music industry who applies a "progressive" format to traditional narcocorridos – songs about the lives and violent deaths of drug traffickers.
Two other stars, Espinoza Paz and Larry Hernandez, have been nominated for nine gongs each at the awards show.
Prizes will be handed out in 32 different categories, including the genres of banda, norteno, mariachi/ranchera and duranguense/grupero music.
According to Nielsen SoundScan, Mexican music is the top selling Latin genre in the US.
New artists such as Ortiz will be hoping to emulate the longevity of veteran performers such as Vicente Fernandez, the mariachi legend who has sold more than 50 million albums.
