Ruben Blades
Ruben Blades
Rubén Blades Bellido de Luna, known professionally as Rubén Blades, is a Panamanian singer, songwriter, actor, musician, activist, and politician, performing musically most often in the Afro-Cuban, salsa, and Latin jazz genres. As a songwriter, Blades brought the lyrical sophistication of Central American nueva canción and Cuban nueva trova as well as experimental tempos and politically inspired Nuyorican salsa to his music, creating "thinking persons'dance music"...
NationalityPanamanian
ProfessionWorld Music Singer
Date of Birth16 July 1948
CityPanama City, Panama
CountryPanama
And, we watched the Beatles one week after they showed up on the Ed Sullivan Show because of the U.S. Southern Command TV network.
I was the first person to come into New York with a Latin American point of view which was also very much influenced by political happenings in Latin America.
So that I saw music as a way of documenting realities from the urban cities of Latin America.
Rock is young music, it is youth oriented. It just speaks for a generation.
Anywhere you had a commerce center, you had a lot of music.
And, he'd seen me in Panama, and he talked about maybe doing something in New York so I hooked it up when I came here and I recorded in 1969 my first album with Pete Rodriguez.
Every band had their own distinctive sound, but it was pretty much dancing music and rhythmic music with a tremendous emphasis on copying the Cuban models.
And music was a very important part of our lives. The radio was on all day.
So that when I came to New York again, it was, I'm not too sure right now, but it was '74 or '75. I went to Miami in '74 and then I came to New York, I think, at the end of '74.
They're making a ton of money, and no one is getting a nickel.
There was no television, so the radio provided you with everything.