Remembering Celia Cruz: 20 years after her death the Queen of Salsa's music still banned in Cuba

 "Forgiving is not forgetting. Forgiving is remembering without pain." - Celia Cruz 

Celia Cruz: Barred from Cuba for wanting to live and sing in freedom

20 years ago today on July 16, 2003 Cuban music and freedom icon Celia Cruz passed away after a battle with cancer. She was 77 years old.  Special Masses are being held in memory of Celia, her mausoleum has been opened today for visitors, and the New York Cuban and Hispanic Parade will honor her today. Next year she will be appearing on U.S. currency.

She had started singing in Havanas's cabaret's in 1947, and recorded her first song in 1948 after joining the Las Mulatas de Fuego (The Fiery Mulattas), a group founded by Roderico Rodney Neyra, who would become known as the choreographer of the Tropicana Cabaret.  Her breakout into stardom took place in 1950 when she joined the Sonora Matancera, and recorded her first songs with them. She would become an international star singing with this group over the next 15 years. She also met her husband Pedro Knight at the first rehearsal of the Sonora Matancera. She had her first gold record in the United States with the song  "Burundanga" in 1957.

Celia made the decision to live and sing in freedom, and in order to do that she had to leave Cuba during the Castro dictatorship. When her mom, Catalina Alfonso, was ill she tried to return to see her in 1962, but was barred from entering the country by the regime. When her mother died Celia was blocked by the dictatorship from attending her funeral. 

The above story is familiar to many, but the details are not, and are worth knowing.

On January 1, 1959 the Cuban revolution took power in Cuba, and despite their claims to be restoring democracy, immediately set out to impose a communist dictatorship, but needed to capture cultural icons and turn them into mouthpieces of the new regime.

Fidel Castro tried to create a situation that forced the salsa singer to pay him homage, but Celia refused. Salserísimo Perú, a site created in Peru by three journalists to share information on salsa and tropical music have reported on it.. Below is an excerpt of Celia Cruz's first "encounter" with Fidel Castro.

    "In the early months of 1959, Celia Cruz was hired to sing with a pianist at the house of the Cuban businessman Miguel Angel Quevedo.  Quevedo owned the magazine Bohemia, the most influential in Cuba and who had supported the revolution in the last few years.  The guerrilla movement with a certain Fidel Castro in front proclaimed in Santiago the beginning of the revolution. For the Guarechera, Fidel was ending free expression and the arts in her country.  The night of the show in the home of Quevedo, Celia was singing standing next to the pianist, when suddenly the guests started to run to the front door of the house. Fidel Castro had arrived.  Neither she nor the pianist moved and continued singing. Suddenly, Quevedo approached Celia and told her that Fidel wanted to meet her because in his guerrilla days, when he cleaned his rifle, he was listening to Burundanga. Celia replied that she had been hired to sing next to the piano, and that was her place. If Fidel wanted to meet her, he would have to come to her.  But the commandant did not do that."

This is totalitarianism. It is not enough not to oppose the dictatorship, but you must actively support it to avoid punishment.

She left Cuba on a flight to Mexico on July 15, 1960

Since Celia Cruz refused to bow to the new dictator, and wanted to continue to live the life of a free artist, she had to leave Cuba. Because she was not an active supporter of the regime, her music was banned in Cuba and she was punished by not being able to see her mom.

 

Celia's relationship with the Sonora Matancera ended in 1965, and in 1966 she began what would be a five album collaboration with Tito Puente. In 1974 both Tito Puente and Celia Cruz signed with Fania Records. Celia would continue that relationship until 1992.

 

The vindictive cruelty of not allowing her to return to her home town in Cuba to see her mother fueled Celia's distaste for the Cuban dictatorship. When she went to the Guantanamo Naval Base three decades later she picked up some Cuban soil, a piece of home, to take back with her into exile. This 1990 trip to the U.S. Guantanamo Naval Base would not be forgotten in official circles of the communist dictatorship.  

 

Celia continued to make hit music, and release new albums in the 1990s, and won both American and Latin Grammys for her work. One of her most famous songs "La vida es un carnaval."  Her last collaboration with Tito Puente was on her album Celia Cruz and Friends: A Night of Salsa, recorded in 2000 for which she received a Latin Grammy.

 On May 19, 2001 at the reopening of the Freedom Tower in Miami Celia Cruz sang the prophetic song "Por si acaso no regreso" [ In case I don't return]. In 2002, Celia released the album, La negra tiene tumbao, for which she won her third Latin Grammy and second Grammy.

 

Celia passed away on July 16, 2003 after a long battle with cancer, and per her request was entombed with soil she had brought back from her 1990 visit to Guantanamo.

Celia in Guantanamo in 1990 collecting Cuban soil she would take home.

 

The world mourned her death in 2003, except in Cuba where the official media printed a small note on her passing recognizing Cruz as an “important Cuban performer who popularized our country’s music in the United States,” it went on to say that “during the last four decades, she was systematically active in campaigns against the Cuban revolution generated in the United States.” 

Rolling Stone Magazine on September 15, 2021 placed Celia Cruz's, 'La Vida Es un Carnaval' as the 439th greatest song of all time.  Below is the image and text provided by the publication.

20 years later Celia Cruz's music is still banned on Cuba's official airwaves, and in death she remains an unperson in official circles of the Castro regime that continue to have monopoly control over radio. 

According to the 2004 book Shoot the singer!: music censorship today edited by Marie Korpe there is concern that post-revolution generations in Cuba are growing up without knowing or hearing censored musicians such as Celia Cruz and Olga Guillot and that this could lead to a loss of Cuban identity in future generations. This process has been described as a  Cuban cultural genocide that is depriving generations of Cubans of their heritage. 

However, every where else in the world, and especially in Miami, she is remembered as the Queen of Salsa and her musical legacy endures.