By Yenys Laura Prieto (El Toque)
HAVANA TIMES – Celia Cruz (1925-2003) never stopped singing her truth to the world. That’s why now, as tributes begin for the 100-year anniversary of her birth, her songs continue to resonate in Havana, Miami, Paris, and Madrid. Simon and Catalina, her parents, never imagined that the girl born in the Santos Suarez neighborhood of Havana would carry the word Cuba so far, even in times when looking back brought pain.
However, Celia Cruz is more than the weight of her legend and the resounding Azúcar! that moved the bodies of dancers. More than the face of a Black Cuban artist on a US coin. More than the name of a music school in the Bronx. Even more than the emotion of actress Whoopi Goldberg saying at the Lehman Center for the Performing Arts in New York: “I always wanted to be like Celia Cruz.”
“In political terms, Celia is the exact example of the failure of censorship in Cuba,” says historian Rosa Marquetti, who has researched the legacy of the Queen of Salsa, discovering in her the fragmented and exiled Cuba.
“I think that Celia never recovered from the censorship in her own country or the entry ban when her mother died. That fact defined her stance towards the Cuban authorities. She consistently maintained that the homeland, the country, and the government are not the same. She acted this way throughout her life. Her discography reflects this. In almost all her albums, she included a track where she expresses her position, her nostalgia, what Cuba meant to her,” notes Marquetti.
“One of the things that motivated me to write the book Celia en Cuba 1925-1962 is the great unawareness surrounding her journey on the island,” says the musicologist. Her enormous success in the salsa movement in New York during the 1970s was widely publicized. That was the time of recordings with Fania Records and her participation as the only female figure in the Fania All Stars project. Afterward, Celia continued her solo career, and that phase also had a significant impact.
“Celia Cruz is one of the first —but not the only— victims of political censorship in Cuba imposed since the early 1960s on musicians, artists, writers, poets, intellectuals, and athletes who did not support the direction of the Cuban Revolution led by Fidel Castro and chose to leave Cuba, waiting for a change that has never occurred, ending up uprooted, living and working in other countries,” states Marquetti.
But what happened before July 15, 1960, when she last embraced her parents and said goodbye, unknowingly, to the sky of Cuba? To revisit her story, researcher Rosa Marquetti reveals curious and little-known facts about the life of one of the most prominent Afro-Latin artists of the 20th century.
Celia was another victim of the early attempt used to punish those who dissent from power in Cuba. To what extent has the state narrative tried to minimize or silence the importance of Celia Cruz to Cuban culture?
I don’t think there has really been a government narrative. The Cuban government had no choice but to talk about her, and it has often done so by trying to discredit her. Celia is an undisputed part of the body of Cuban culture. Not only Cuban culture: I always insist. She is part of that legacy that is fundamental for a whole legion of interpreters, soloists, and orchestras. She played leading or very relevant roles in all significant moments of Cuban music starting from the 1940s.
We are three generations of Cubans who grew up without her, without having her music on Cuban radio and television. We heard her and learned of her achievements in a fragmented way. This situation increased the desire to know more about the artist. Once we discovered her, it became impossible to do without her. With creators like Celia Cruz, censorship is useless.
Celia’s recognition within Latin culture in the United States is increasingly visible. The National Museum of History recently organized a tribute for her centennial. How has her legacy been embraced by the Cuban diaspora?
As young Cubans emigrate, whether out of nostalgia or curiosity, they are reconnecting with that part of the culture and experiences that were hidden from them. In that realm lies the music of Celia Cruz.
It brings me immense joy and deeply moves me to see young people interested in her work. The work of the Celia Cruz Foundation and its president, Omer Pardillo, has influenced this a lot. I also believe that Celia wanted to connect with younger people in her last recordings. “La vida es un carnaval” and “La negra tiene tumbao” are songs that have the sonic keys of the 21st century.
A lot has been written about Celia Cruz; especially about her life outside Cuba. However, your work attempts to delve into a less publicized stage that explains the causes of her international rise. What are the lesser-known aspects?
She spoke about certain topics but didn’t delve into others. There were aspects of her life in Cuba that pained her. She went through crucial moments in Cuban music on the island. According to Maria Teresa Linares, she was in the right place at the right time. Yes, that’s true, but Celia also worked extremely hard. She was a tireless worker with a strong discipline.
Through my research, I discovered that her first personal program was called “Momento Afrocubano con Celia Cruz.” She was one of the stars who passed through the Mil Diez station during the 1940s. I was surprised to learn that Celia performed in lyrical theater. I also found out that she had been accompanied by several orchestras under the direction of maestros like Ernesto Lecuona, Rodrigo Prats, and Bebo Valdes.
On the other hand, Celia Cruz was not an activist or a feminist. These were different times. However, she had a very unique perspective on the figure of women in popular music. For example, she recorded a song titled “Quedate Negra” in Venezuela, where she claimed the beauty of Black women. We must take into account that it is a recording from 1948. She never recorded that song again, but it can be heard on YouTube.
Are there tapes from her time in Cuban radio?
La Sonora Matancera, with Celia among its singers, had a daily program in the 1950s —from Monday to Friday— for eight years on Radio Progreso. Many programs were usually recorded. But what remains is what is referenced in Annex 1 of the first edition of the book “Celia en Cuba”. Most of those tapes were lost, destroyed, or went missing. It would have been wonderful to have them because commercial recordings do not show all the splendor of an artist or a group. For example, improvisations and montunos can extend beyond what is appropriate, which is why they are excluded from albums. In those expressions, there is extraordinary richness. If they had been preserved, we would have a record of Celia Cruz’s progress as an improviser and sonera.
In the midst of the Cuban “jolgorio,” which is rooted in the genres of popular music interpreted by Celia, there is a nostalgic look, a homeland that is longed for from afar. “In case I don’t return, I take your flag with me,” she sings. What was the most traumatic moment in her relationship with the island?
The first crucial and defining fact I have confirmed is that Celia could never understand why she was not allowed to enter Cuba during her mother’s last moments. It was 1962. Contexts are very important to understand what happened. When her mother died, Law 989 of December 6, 1961, was already in effect, which established the permission for leaving and entering the country. The regulation declared as traitors those who had not returned within the established period and also decreed the confiscation of their assets. Celia requested permission to return, but it was denied, and that marked her definitive relationship with the Cuban government and the figure of Fidel Castro.
After that loss, it was very painful for her to be excluded from everything: “They cannot take me away; I am Cuba,” she said publicly referring to her exclusion from the first edition of the Dictionary of Cuban music, by the late musicologist Helio Orovio.
On the other hand, few know that Celia could not travel to the United States until 1957, even though she was to receive a Gold Record. She was not given a visa until that year. Let’s remember that it was the time of McCarthyism, and she had worked at Mil Diez, the station of the Popular Socialist Party (many musicians and singers who later became great figures in the art also passed through there, including Olga Guillot, Bebo Valdes, and a long list). It was simply the place where many artists found work.
The legend has grown alongside her international projection as an artist. However, there are many gaps in her story caused by censorship. What is being silenced?
A part of Cuban history has omitted Celia’s greatness in Cuba. Before leaving the country, she was already one of the greatest and most popular performers. She even became one of the two highest-paid singers and was the queen of the Tropicana cabaret shows. She had an exclusive recording contract and performed with La Sonora Matancera as a guest artist. But she also carried on her career as a soloist. She left Cuba with more than 125 songs with commercial recordings.
It is said that Celia Cruz was made by Fania and New York salsa. None of that is true. Fania merely amplified her reach in areas where the Cuban artist had not arrived and enhanced her great talent, as well as the experience accumulated on stages and in recording studios.
Her first connection with Fania was an invitation to sing in “Hommy,” the first Latin American opera, created by Larry Harlow and premiered in 1972. Before that, Celia Cruz already had an established career.
Another way to minimize her legacy is to say that the singer gained fame due to her political position. There is a lot of evidence that Celia’s recognition among Latin American, Afro-Caribbean, and English-speaking American audiences is essentially related to her defense of traditional music. The international public recognized her as a representative of something authentic. Questioning the value of Celia’s work has been one of the lines of attack of censorship.
She was always admired by the Cuban community abroad and also won over the Latino and African American communities. All of this culminates in what we are experiencing today. The US Mint announced the issuance of a commemorative coin for Celia Cruz as part of the federal American Women Quarters program, which will continue until 2025 as a tribute to outstanding women in American history. Celia is the first Afro-Latina recognized in this way. It is curious that, thanks to Celia, a symbol of the island, the Cuban bata, and a word in Spanish —Azúcar!— also appear on the coin.
In one of your most recent articles, you warn that “to this day, in the case of Celia Cruz, censorship as a tool of cultural policy has granted Cuban rulers the shameful privilege of a unique record: that of a country that officially decides to despise, condemn to ostracism in its territory, minimize her relevance, and discard one of the unquestionable pillars of its culture. Meanwhile, she receives the greatest recognition worldwide and in her country of adoption.” What do we owe to Celia?
Almost never is what the censored person experienced discussed, and how censorship can affect their personal integrity. The personal and individual cost is not talked about. Celia never recovered from that anguish.
The first recordings of Yoruba liturgical music were made in 1947. They were also the first recordings of Celia and Merceditas Valdes. This fact has been deliberately silenced, despite its significance. I believe that this concealment aims to prevent her from being mentioned and recognized for that contribution.
Celia Cruz deserves recognition from the Cuban state. I am not talking about the people. The people admire and love her. I am talking about “official” recognition that may never come. I feel obliged to remind everyone of this all the time. The whole world has bowed to the greatness of her work, except in Cuba. Several generations have learned to discover her, despite government attempts to omit her legacy.
When we analyze where she came from and where she ended up, we understand that what she achieved is extraordinary. She was a very intelligent artist. There is no way to carry on a career to the extent she did without discipline. She also had extraordinary boldness to when it came to making decisions. Her departure from La Sonora Matancera and from Fania; even the changes in her image, were pivotal moments. She was always convinced of her responsibility as a cultural icon of Cuba.
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On October 21, 2025, Celia will turn 100. For Cubans here and abroad, Celia’s music is more than a broken country and exile. It is perhaps that idea of persistence that emerges in her very Cuban version of I Will Survive: “Hear my son, my old son has the key to any generation. In the soul of my people, in the skin of the drum, in the hands of the conga player, in the feet of the dancer. I will live.”
First published in Spanish by El Toque and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.
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