A 28-year-old Puerto Rican rapper just beat Lady Gaga and Elton John for GLAAD’s top music honor. Read that again.
Young Miko took home Outstanding Music Artist at the 37th annual GLAAD Media Awards on Thursday night in Los Angeles, earning the recognition for her sophomore album “Do Not Disturb” (The Wave Music Group/Capitol Records). The 16-track project, released in November 2025, is a genre-bending flex that moves through trap, reggaeton, drum and bass, R&B, and afrobeats while centering queer desire and identity in every bar.
She didn’t edge out unknowns. She beat Lady Gaga and Elton John & Brandi Carlile, two of the most iconic LGBTQ+ allies and artists in pop music history, according to Billboard’s full winners list.
The Bigger Picture
For hip-hop, this moment carries weight. Latin rap and reggaeton have long operated under a hyper-masculine framework. Young Miko has spent her career dismantling that framework, not with protest anthems, but by simply existing loudly. On tracks like “En el Ritz” and “Piki,” she flips the male gaze entirely, delivering sex-positive bars with the same swagger her male counterparts have always claimed as theirs alone, as Rolling Stone noted in their album coverage.
She wasn’t the only music winner. K-pop-influenced group KATSEYE (HYBE x Geffen Records) won Outstanding Breakthrough Music Artist. Chappell Roan’s vulnerable “Call Her Daddy” podcast episode, titled “Chappell Roan: Are People Scared of Me?,” tied for Outstanding Podcast Episode. Actor Jonathan Bennett hosted the ceremony, and Demi Lovato performed, according to coverage from MSNBC.
Beyond Music
The ceremony honored representation across entertainment. “Heated Rivalry” (HBO Max/Crave) won Outstanding New TV Series. “Stranger Things” took Outstanding Drama. “Kiss of the Spider Woman” won Outstanding Film for wide theatrical release. Quinta Brunson, the “Abbott Elementary” creator and star, received the Vanguard Award, while “Las Culturistas” podcast hosts Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers received the Stephen F. Kolzak Award for work eliminating homophobia.
Why This Matters
When GLAAD’s voters chose a young, queer, Afro-Latina rapper over two of pop music’s biggest names, they weren’t making a statement about talent alone. They were recognizing where the culture is actually moving. Hip-hop and Latin music are the dominant global sounds right now. If LGBTQ+ visibility is going to be meaningful (not just symbolic), it has to show up in those spaces, not just on pop stages where acceptance was already built in.
Young Miko is not asking for a seat at anyone’s table. She built her own. And GLAAD just confirmed what her fans already knew: the future of queer representation in hip-hop is not a theory. It’s already here, rapping in Spanish, and winning.
The ceremony will stream on Hulu beginning March 21.
