Aventura Top Winners At Billboard Latin Music Awards Monday May 3rd, 2010 9:00am EST Aventura, the urban bachata group from the Bronx that has re-energized the tropical music scene, was the big winner at the 2010 Billboard Latin Music Awards, snaring nine trophies, including Latin album and digital album of the year for "The Last" (Premium). The awards, presented by State Farm in association with T-Mobile, aired live April 29 on Telemundo from Coliseo de Puerto Rico Jose Miguel Agrelot in San Juan and featured 14 performances by more than 20 acts. It marked the first time in its 21-year history that the awards show, seen in nearly 50 countries, had been held outside the continental United States. Aventura's nine wins also included the newly created Latin artist of the year award, which combines achievements on both the Top Latin Albums sales chart and Hot Latin Songs airplay chart. Tito "El Bambino" was the second-most-honored artist with seven awards, including hot Latin song male artist of the year and-for his hit single "El Amor" (Siente/Universal)-hot Latin song and Latin digital download of the year. Luis Fonsi and Wisin & Yandel each received three awards. They included Latin pop album solo artist of the year for Fonsi, who records for Universal Music Latino, and Latin rhythm album of the year for Wisin & Yandel's "La Revolución" (Machete). Although this year's awards cut across a broad swath of genres and styles, they were remarkable for a prevalence of winners with music that blended urban and pop sensibilities in a mix that transcended radio formats and nationalities. "El Amor," for example, written by "El Bambino" with Joan Ortiz, played on urban, tropical and pop formats across the country, as did songs by Aventura and even by pop artists like Fonsi. Cross-pollination has also been a key part of the strategy at Universal Music Latin Entertainment, which dominated the label awards. UMLE took home top Latin albums label of the year, while UMLE's pop imprint, Universal Music Latino, won the hot Latin songs label of the year award and its tropical/urban imprint, Machete, won Latin rhythm airplay label of the year. UMLE's regional Mexican imprint, Disa, won regional Mexican airplay label of the year. UMLE imprints, which also won albums label of the year awards in the Latin pop, regional Mexican and Latin rhythm genres, work closely with one another, often mixing and matching artists across Latin genres. Sony Music Latin dominated the tropical category, winning the airplay label and albums label awards.