Rubén Blades

• Born: July 16, 1948
• Place of Birth: Panama City, Panama

PANAMANIAN LATIN JAZZ AND SALSA GUITARIST, SINGER, AND SONGWRITER

Blades revolutionized salsa music by incorporating into his compositions new instrumentation, adventurous arrangements, other world music, and socially and politically relevant lyrics.

MEMBER OF Rubén Blades y Seis del Solar; Rubén Blades y Son del Solar

The Life

Rubén Blades Bellido de Luna was born in the barrio of San Felipe in Panama City, the second of five children in a family of immigrants. His mother, Anoland Bellido de Luna, was a Cuban singer and pianist, and his father, Rubén Blades, Sr., was a Colombian percussionist, basketball player, and detective. Blades’s paternal grandfather was an English citizen from Saint Lucia who migrated to Panama to work on the canal. Although Blades and his family use the English pronunciation of their last name, the Spanish pronunciation (BLAH-dehs) is widely used.

His upbringing in a musical family proved fruitful for the development of Blades’s skills and sensitivity, which were also nurtured by the diverse musical environment present in Panama City. While growing up, Blades lived through the height of rock and roll, listening not only to Elvis Presley and the Beatles but also to such jazz performers as Dizzy Gillespie and Duke Ellington. Blades was exposed to many popular Latin American musicians, such as Benny Moré, Perez Prado, Cheo Feliciano, and the Joe Cuba Sextet, all of whom proved influential to his career.

Blades performed onstage for the first time as a teenager, substituting for the vocalist in his brother’s rock band, the Saints. The 1964 Panama Canal riots had an enduring effect on Blades, leading him to pursue his interests in politics and law over music. He decided to seek degrees in law and political science at the University of Panama, while singing with fellow university students in Los Salvajes del Ritmo (the rhythm savages) and working as a guest composer-singer for the professional Latin music group Bush y sus Magnificos (Bush and his magnificents). The University of Panama closed in 1969 because of political unrest, and Blades used this time to travel to New York, where he recorded his first album, From Panama to New York, with the popular orchestra of Pete Rodriguez. The album was a commercial failure, and, as soon as the University of Panama reopened, Blades returned to continue his studies, graduating in 1972.

After his father was accused by the Panamanian government of working as a spy for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Blades’s family moved to Miami in 1973. In 1973 and 1974, Blades worked as an attorney for the National Bank of Panama, but he became dissatisfied with his law career and moved to New York after visiting his family in Florida. In New York Blades worked for the Panamanian consulate and in the mail room of Fania, a salsa record label. There he auditioned as a singer and composer and began singing for the band of Ray Barretto, debuting at Madison Square Garden in 1974. After that, his musical career soared. He composed more hits for the Fania label and joined forces with trombone player, producer, and bandleader Willie Colón.

The collaboration of Blades and Colón was sensational, uniting Blades’s compositional and poetical skills and Colón’s amazing ear for arranging and producing albums. They began to compose salsa conciente, a type of salsa that communicated social and political issues through outspoken lyrics, stimulating both thought and dancing. Together, Blades and Colón recorded many albums for the Fania label, including Siembra (sow) and Canciones del solar de los aburridos (songs from the tenement of the bored).

During the early 1980s, Blades ended his artistic collaboration with Colón and went on to have a successful solo career as a musician and as an actor. He signed with Elektra Records, and in 1984 he released the album Buscando América (looking for America), which became a big hit. Blades’s social activism, reflected in his lyrics, persevered throughout the 1980s. He continued his law career and earned a master’s degree in international law from Harvard University in 1985.

Blades had a productive film career in the 1980s and 1990s. He appeared in Robert Redford’s 1988 film The Milagro Beanfield War, and he collaborated on the sound track for Spike Lee’s 1989 film Do the Right Thing. In 1994, Blades became a candidate for president of Panama. With 18 percent of the vote, he finished in third place. Continuing his successful career as a musician, Blades recorded albums through the 1990s and into the 2000s, including Amor y control (love and control) and Mundo (world). In 2004 Blades became Panama’s minister of tourism. He took a role on the television show Fear the Walking Dead in 2015. In 2021, Blades was named the Latin Recording Academy Person of the Year.

Blades continued releasing music into the 2020s. Some of his most notable works from this period include the albums SALSWING! (2021), Pasieros (2022), and Parceiros (2022). In 2024, Blades was granted an honorary Doctorate of Music degree from Princeton University.

The Music

Blades was a pioneer in blending intricate salsa arrangements with socially aware lyrics, creating salsa conciente. Addressing issues such as poverty, exploitation, sovereignty, and pan-Americanism, his music had much in common with Latin American nueva canción (new song, often protest songs). However, in contrast to nueva canción artists, who often perform solo, Blades used salsa orchestras or small Latin jazz ensembles to deliver his songs. Although he is largely an autodidact, Blades’s compositions demonstrate great harmonic, melodic, and rhythmic understanding. Throughout his career he would tastefully incorporate a diverse palette of styles and genres into his compositions, including jazz, rumba, Cuban son, Puerto Rican bomba, bossa nova, reggae, and Celtic. Blades’s independent and innovative spirit is evident in his music, which defies the limitations of genres by breaking with compositional and performance stereotypes.

“Plástico.” An example of salsa conciente, “Plástico” (plastic) opened the best-selling album Siembra, and its inventive arrangement and lyrics reflect the multicultural environment present in 1970’s New York. “Plástico” satirizes and condemns the vanity, materialism, racism, and superficiality that threaten to overpower the moral values of the Latin communities. In format and rhythm, the song presents the listener with surprises, beginning with an instrumental disco-funk section and switching to Afro-Cuban patterns and Puerto Rican bomba backing up Blades’s verses. Typical of salsa, after the verses is a coro y soneo (chorus and lead singer) section, during which Blades improvises lyrics. The coda uses a bomba pattern, while Blades sends an outspoken pan-American message.

“Pedro Navaja.” Also from Siembra, “Pedro Navaja” (Peter Pocketknife) became a top-selling salsa single. A subtle tribute to Bertolt Brecht’s “Mack the Knife,” this song is a masterpiece of narrative. With a tight arrangement by Luis Ortíz, “Pedro Navaja” uses studio effects (sirens and police radio) to support the story surrounding Navaja’s death, the song portraying the life of the Latin barrios in New York and the Caribbean cities, where criminal activity is a constant threat. The song brilliantly balances tragedy and humor, while supporting the album’s motto, “you reap what you sow.” It was a huge hit that, seven and half minutes in length, defied radio format. After a full-orchestra introduction, the narrative starts with congas and voice, adding more instruments in subsequent stanzas, until all instruments join in the chorus and leader section. This song was a breakthrough for Blades as a singer and lyricist.

“Tiburón.” With its expressed disapproval of U.S. intervention in Latin American affairs, “Tiburón” (shark) produced some enemies for Blades, especially in the community of Cuban exiles who approve U.S. efforts to stamp out communism. Nevertheless, “Tiburón” was a hit in many Latin American countries and remains one of Blades’s emblematic compositions. Opening the 1981 album Canciones del solar de los aburridos, “Tiburón” uses studio effects to its advantage. Blades sings over a traditional guaguancó pattern through the verses, while the chorus and leader section presents the usual salsa son montuno pattern, both examples of Afro-Cuban rhythms.

“El Padre Antonio y el Monaguillo Andrés.” A song from the 1984 album Buscando América, “El Padre Antonio y el Monaguillo Andrés” (Father Anthony and altar boy Andrew) is another of Blades’s great narrative songs. Based on the assassination of Oscar Romero, a priest in El Salvador, it tells the story of a government’s repression of justice and the innocent casualties of civil war. Like the rest of the album, this song pushes the boundaries of salsa by using synthesizers in place of horns. The introduction and ending present an unusual musical pattern, reminiscent of Cuban bembe and Venezuelan gaitas, patterns rarely heard on salsa arrangements. With its adventurous instrumentation and arrangement, this innovative song hinted at the musical direction that Blades would follow for the next two decades.

“Primogenio.” An experiment in world music, “Primogenio” (beginnings) successfully combined Celtic melodies played by Scottish pipes and fiddles with the sounds of a small Latin jazz ensemble. “Primogenio” appeared on Mundo, the album that won the Grammy Award for Best World Music Album in 2002. In it, Blades consolidates music from Brazil, North Africa, Spain, Great Britain, the United States, and the Caribbean. For “Primogenio” Blades uses the tumbao, the constant rhythmic relation between congas and bass typical of salsa. He also adds the Cuban rumba pattern in the middle and ending sections. Rumba patterns are often used to honor Cuban deities from the Yoruba pantheon, such as Eleguá, the deity Blades praises in “Primogenio.” An impressive work of world-music juxtaposition, “Primogenio” serves as a great example of musical multiculturalism.

Blades put his musical career on hold for much of the first decade of the twenty-first century, as his position as minister of tourism took precedence. In 2008, however, he took a leave of absence to tour Europe backed by the Costa Rican band Son de Tikizia. In June 2009, having finished his government service, he went on a reunion tour with Seis del Solar to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of Buscando America. Later that year, he released the album Cantares del Subdesarrollo which earned a Latin Grammy Award for best singer-songwriter album. His 2011 collaboration with Cheo Feliciano, Eba Say Ajá, was nominated for a Latin Grammy for best salsa album, and his next solo album, Tangos (2015), won a Grammy Award for best Latin pop album. In 2016, he went on a tour that he said would be his final set of performances as a salsa musician, though he planned to continue working in other genres.

Musical Legacy

Following Blades’s lead, many musicians in salsa and related genres, such as merengue, incorporated thought-provoking lyrics that address socially relevant issues. This significantly expanded the audience for these genres, inviting both dancers and non-dancers alike to listen, think, and enjoy. Beyond the lyrics, the elegant and sometimes unusual compositions of Blades have influenced such musicians as Mark Anthony, Juan Luis Guerra, Gilberto Santa Rosa, and Ricky Martin. Beyond salsa, Blades’s influence was seen in his varied collaborations with such musicians as Sting, Lou Reed, Los Fabulosos Cadillacs, Guerra, Maná, and Sun City.

After years of working under contract with record labels such as Fania and Elektra, Blades went independent, pioneering new ways to promote and sell records and encouraging younger generations of Latin musicians to follow his path. In the early 2000’s Blades explored the idea of selling records on the Internet for a price determined by the listener-consumer, a practice later popularized by bands such as Radiohead.

Principal Recordings

ALBUMS (solo): From Panama to New York, 1970 (with Pete Rodriguez); Bohemio y poeta, 1979; Maestra vida: Primera parte, 1980; Maestra vida: Segunda parte, 1980; Buscando América, 1984; Mucho mejor, 1984; Antecedente, 1988; Nothingbut the Truth, 1988; Doble filo, 1992; El que la hace la paga, 1992; Rubén Blades with Strings, 1992; Joseph and His Brothers, 1993 (with Jorge Strunz and Ardeshir Farah); Rosa de los vientos, 1996; Tiempos, 1999; Mundo, 2002; Salsa caliente de Nu York, 2002; Una década, 2003; O Melhor, Vol. 1, 2004; O Melhor, Vol. 2, 2004; SALSWING, 2021; Pasieros, 2022; Parceiros, 2022.

ALBUMS (with Seis del Solar): Escenas, 1985; Aguade luna, 1986.

ALBUMS (with Son del Solar): Caminando, 1991; Amor y control, 1992.

ALBUMS (with Willie Colón): Willie Colón Presents Rubén Blades, 1977; Siembra, 1978; Canciones del solar de los aburridos, 1981; The Last Fight, 1992; Sembra y otros favoritos salsa para siempre, 2001.

Bibliography

Blades, Ruben. "Fear the Walking Dead: Ruben Blades Says the Show Deals with 'Very Tough and Important Questions.'" Interview by Dalton Ross. Entertainment Weekly, 20 Aug. 2015, ew.com/article/2015/08/20/fear-the-walking-dead-ruben-blades-premiere. Accessed 13 Oct. 2024.

Blades, Ruben, and Mercedes Mason. "Geekscape Interviews: Fear the Walking Dead's Ruben Blades and Mercedes Mason Talk East LA, Snipers, and More!" Interview by Derek Kraneveldt. Geekscape, 5 Aug. 2015, www.geekscape.net/geekscape-interviews-fear-the-walking-deads-ruben-blades-and-mercedes-mason-talk-east-la-snipers-and-more. Accessed 13 Oct. 2024.

Bordowitz, Hank. Noise of the World: Non-Western Musicians in Their Own Words. Soft Skull Press, 2004.

Calavia-Robertson, Daysi. "Ruben Blades' Farewell Tour Is All About Gratitude." FL Keys News, 26 Aug. 2016, www.flkeysnews.com/entertainment/arts-culture/article97599572.html. Accessed 13 Oct. 2024.

Cruz, Bárbara. Rubén Blades: Salsa Singer and Social Activist. Enslow, 1997.

"Princeton Awards Seven Honorary Degrees." Princeton University, 28 May 2024, www.princeton.edu/news/2024/05/28/princeton-awards-seven-honorary-degrees#:~:text=Princeton%20University%20awarded%20seven%20honorary,Sejnowski%2C%20Princeton%20President%20Christopher%20L. Accessed 13 Oct. 2024.

Randel, Don Michael. “Crossing Over with Rubén Blades.” Journal of the American Musicological Society 44, no. 2 (Summer, 1991): 301-323.

Wald, Elijah. Global Minstrels: Voices of World Music. Routledge, 2007.