Cuba's Queen of Salsa Celia Cruz was born 98 years ago today in Havana but the Castro regime still bans her music

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

Celia Cruz 1925 - 2003

Úrsula Hilaria Celia de la Caridad Cruz Alfonso was born 98 years ago today in Havana, Cuba, but she was better known as Celia Cruz. She played in Cuba for twelve years from 1948 until 1960. Because she wanted to play her music around the world, she was banned by the Castro regime from returning to the island.

 

Celia was not able to return to Cuba when her father died there in 1961, and she was not allowed to return to Cuba when her mother became ill, or at attend her funeral when her mom died in 1962.

Celia Cobo of Billboard Magazine observed that "Cruz is indisputably the best known and most influential female figure in the history of Cuban music." The impact of the Castro regime on music in Cuba goes beyond jailing musicians and includes systematic censorship that threatens the island's musical legacy as has been the case with the Queen of Salsa.

Google Doodle of Celia Cruz from 2013

She is recognized around the world as an icon of music and in 2013 Google honored Celia on the 88th anniversary of her birth with a Google Doodle. In 2010 the United States Postal Service issued a postage stamp in her honor describing the Cuban artist as follows.

"A dazzling performer of many genres of Afro-Caribbean music, Celia Cruz (1925-2003) had a powerful contralto voice and a joyful, charismatic personality that endeared her to fans from different nationalities and across generations. Settling in the United States following the Cuban revolution, the “Queen of Salsa” performed for more than five decades and recorded more than 50 albums."  

 Next year the United States Mint will be featured on the reverse side of the U.S. quarter as one of the honorees for the American Women Quarters Program.

However in Cuba the Castro regime continues to ban the music of Celia Cruz from the radio airwaves. She is not alone. There are other banned Cuban musicians of great importance. According to Shoot the singer!: music censorship today, a book edited by Marie Korpe states that there is increasing concern within the international music community that post-revolution generations are growing up without knowing or hearing these censored musicians and that this could lead to a loss of Cuban identity in future generations.

The phrase cultural genocide is used to describe the "cultural revolution" of the 1960s and 1970s that blacklisted and censored scores of Cuban musicians and artists.

The above censorship is widely known, but not as well known is that the way Celia Cruz was blocked by Fidel Castro from returning to Cuba to say goodbye to her parents, still goes on today in Cuba with members of the diaspora barred arbitrarily from seeing their loved ones by the Castro regime.

Celia Cruz: The Queen of Salsa

The Queen of Salsa passed away twenty years go on July 16, 2003 and her music is still banned in Cuba today.  At the time of her death the Associated Press reported:

"While the death of salsa singer Celia Cruz was reported prominently in newspapers across the world, the news got scant and somewhat bitter treatment Thursday in the official media of her homeland. The Cuban Communist Party newspaper Granma reported Cruz’s death in a tiny, two-paragraph story published low on page 6 of the eight-page edition."

On August 8, 2012 BBC News reported that the Cuban regime's ban on anti-Castro musicians had been quietly lifted and two days later the BBC correspondent in Cuba, Sarah Rainsford, tweeted that she had been given names of forbidden artists by the central committee and the internet was a buzz that the ban on anti-Castro musicians had been quietly lifted. Others soon followed reporting on the news.  The stories specifically mentioned Celia Cruz as one of the artists whose music would return to Cuban radio. 

Let Celia Cruz's music be heard in Cuba

This wasn't news but a rumor that nine years after her death her music would be played on Cuban radio, after a half century absence but they were dispelled by regime officials. On August 21, 2012 Tony Pinelli, a musician and radio producer, distributed an e-mail in which Rolando Álvarez, the national director of the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television Instituto Cubano de Radio y Televisión (ICRT) confirmed that the music of the late Celia Cruz would continue to be banned.

Sharing the music of Celia Cruz in Cuba is a counter-revolutionary act according to the Castro regime and is an act of subversion against the communist dictatorship. Please share her music widely because it is the sound of freedom. This is why Cuba's tyrants hate her and her music so much, even in death.

Viva Celia Cruz! Azucar!

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.

Remembering Celia Cruz: 16 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

16 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. This woman made the decision to live and sing in freedom, and in order to do that Celia had to leave Cuba during the Castro dictatorship. When her mom 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. 


This act of vindictive cruelty fueled her 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 Cruz in 1962

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.”

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.


16 years later Celia Cruz's music is still banned in Cuba, and in death she remains an unperson in official circles of the Castro regime that continue to have monopoly control over radio airwaves. However, every where else in the world, and especially in Miami, she is remembered as the Queen of Salsa and her musical legacy endures.

This is part of the terrible legacy of Castroism. The music of Celia will return to Cuba's radio airwaves one day and that will be cause for celebration. Azucar!

Celia Cruz picks up some Cuban soil to take a piece of home back to exile in 1990

#LetWomenSing: Castros wouldn't let Celia Cruz sing in Cuba but the Queen of Salsa sang to the world

Let Celia Cruz be heard on radio in Cuba.

Let Celia Cruz's music be heard in Cuba

Freemuse in 2017 is focusing on women’s and musicians’ rights and access to cultural equality under the banner #LetWomenSing. The image they are using in their media campaign bears a striking resemblance to Celia Cruz and it is appropriate because Freemuse wants to create awareness and start a conversation about the inequality female musicians are experiencing.

Celia Cruz was and remains a nonperson in Cuba. Celia Cobo of Billboard Magazine once said "Cruz is indisputably the best known and most influential female figure in the history of Cuban music." The impact of the Castro regime on music in Cuba goes beyond jailing musicians and includes systematic censorship that threatens the island's musical legacy as has been the case with the Queen of Salsa.

According to the 2004 book Shoot the singer!: music censorship today edited by Marie Korpe there is increasing 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.

Olga Guillot's music is also still banned on Cuba radio

Later this month on October 21st the world will observe the 92nd anniversary of the birth of Cuban music icon Celia Cruz. The Queen of Salsa passed away fourteen years go on July 16, 2003 and her music is still banned in Cuba today.  At the time of her death in 2003 the Associated Press reported:

"While the death of salsa singer Celia Cruz was reported prominently in newspapers across the world, the news got scant and somewhat bitter treatment Thursday in the official media of her homeland. The Cuban Communist Party newspaper Granma reported Cruz’s death in a tiny, two-paragraph story published low on page 6 of the eight-page edition."

On August 8, 2012 BBC News reported that the Cuban regime's ban on anti-Castro musicians had been quietly lifted and two days later the BBC correspondent in Cuba, Sarah Rainsford, tweeted that she had been given names of forbidden artists by the central committee and the internet was a buzz that the ban on anti-Castro musicians had been quietly lifted. Others soon followed reporting on the news.  The stories specifically mentioned Celia Cruz as one of the artists whose music would return to Cuban radio. This wasn't news but a rumor that nine years after her death her music would be played on Cuban radio, after a half century absence but they were dispelled by regime officials. On August 21, 2012 Tony Pinelli, a musician and radio producer, distributed an e-mail in which Rolando Álvarez, the national director of the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television Instituto Cubano de Radio y Televisión (ICRT) confirmed that the music of the late Celia Cruz would continue to be banned. The e-mail stated:

"All those who had allied with the enemy, who acted against our families, like Celia Cruz, who went to sing at the Guantanamo Base, the ICRT arrogated to itself the right, quite properly, not to disseminate them on Cuban radio "

This e-mail refers to Celia Cruz playing at the Guantanamo Naval Base in 1990. Because she had decided to continue to play her music, as a free woman, outside of Cuba the Castro brothers barred Celia from returning to Cuba in 1962 to bury her mother who had just died. 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. 

Celia Cruz picks up some Cuban soil to take a piece of home back to exile

In October of 2015 Telemundo aired the first of an 80 part - novela on the life of Celia Cruz, the woman who would become known as the Queen of Salsa and "La Guarachera de Cuba".

Google Doodle of Celia Cruz from 2013

In 2013 Google, on the tenth anniversary of her passing, honored Celia on her birthday with a Google Doodle. In 2010 the United States Postal Service issued a postage stamp in her honor describing the Cuban artist as follows.

"A dazzling performer of many genres of Afro-Caribbean music, Celia Cruz (1925-2003) had a powerful contralto voice and a joyful, charismatic personality that endeared her to fans from different nationalities and across generations. Settling in the United States following the Cuban revolution, the “Queen of Salsa” performed for more than five decades and recorded more than 50 albums." 

Sadly, it is not only in Cuba, Freemuse is working to bring attention to the "very violent and direct restrictions women musicians face in countries such as Iran, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan," and censorship elsewhere. Here in America we witnessed an ugly episode of censorship with the Dixie Chicks in 2003, but at least it was not government sponsored but Clear Channel played a sinister role in keeping their music out of their airwaves. However they are back on the airwaves and touring across the country. Something that Celia Cruz and other banned Cuban musicians were never able to do, not even posthumously in the island where they were born: have their music played on the radio. This is part of the terrible legacy of Castroism. The music of Celia and Olga will return to Cuba's radio airwaves one day and that will be cause for celebration. Azucar!

Celebrating Celia Cruz and her decision to live and sing in freedom

How the Castro regime sought to censor and punish Celia Cruz for living in freedom

Celia Cruz: The Queen of Salsa

In just seven days on October 21st the world will observe the 90th anniversary of the birth in Havana, Cuba of Úrsula Hilaria Celia de la Caridad Cruz Alfonso better known as Celia Cruz. Last night Telemundo aired the first of an 80 part - novela of the life of the woman who would become known as the Queen of Salsa and "La Guarachera de Cuba". The first episode is available online. She is recognized around the world as an icon of music and in 2013 Google honored Celia on the 88th anniversary of her birth with a Google Doodle. In 2010 the United States Postal Service issued a postage stamp in her honor describing the Cuban artist as follows.

"A dazzling performer of many genres of Afro-Caribbean music, Celia Cruz (1925-2003) had a powerful contralto voice and a joyful, charismatic personality that endeared her to fans from different nationalities and across generations. Settling in the United States following the Cuban revolution, the “Queen of Salsa” performed for more than five decades and recorded more than 50 albums."  

However in Cuba the Castro regime continues to ban the music of Celia Cruz from the radio airwaves. She is not alone. There are other banned Cuban musicians of great importance. According to Shoot the singer!: music censorship today, a book edited by Marie Korpe states that there is increasing concern within the international music community that post-revolution generations are growing up without knowing or hearing these censored musicians and that this could lead to a loss of Cuban identity in future generations.The phrase cultural genocide is used to describe the "cultural revolution" of the 1960s and 1970s that blacklisted and censored scores of Cuban musicians and artists.

The above censorship is widely known, but not as well known is that when the mother of Celia Cruz was dying the Cuban musical icon was blocked by Fidel Castro from returning to Cuba to say goodbye to her mom or attend her funeral afterwards.  This practice still goes on today with Cuban dissidents in the diaspora barred arbitrarily from seeing their loved ones by the Castro regime.

Cuba under the Castros remains a totalitarian regime that has maintained a level of inflexibility that even 12 years after her death in 2003 and with relations "normalized" with the United States continues to censor the music of Celia Cruz. Women who think and speak freely in Cuba still suffer horrible consequences.

Hopefully that will soon change. In the meantime Celia's music and her legacy live on in Cuba on cassette tapes, CDs, DVDs, and USBs circulating in the Cuban underground.

 

Celia Cruz still banned in Cuba but International media remains silent

Celia Cruz's music remains banned in Cuba by the dictatorship

On August 8, 2012 BBC News reported that Cuba's ban on anti-Castro musicians had been quietly lifted and on August 10 the BBC correspondent in Cuba, Sarah Rainsford, tweeted that she had been given names of forbidden artists by the central committee and the internet was a buzz that the ban on anti-Castro musicians had been quietly lifted. Others soon followed reporting on the news. The stories specifically mentioned Celia Cruz as one of the artists whose music would return to Cuban radio.

There is only one problem. It is not true. Diario de Cuba reported on August 21, 2012 that Tony Pinelli, a well known musician and radio producer, distributed an e-mail in which Rolando Álvarez, the national director of the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television Instituto Cubano de Radio y Televisión (ICRT) confirmed that the music of the late Celia Cruz would continue to be banned. The e-mail clearly stated: "All those who had allied with the enemy, who acted against our families, like Celia Cruz, who went to sing at the Guantanamo Base, the ICRT arrogated to itself the right, quite properly, not to disseminate them on Cuban radio "

Olga Guillot's music is still banned on Cuba radio

 Cuba's cultural genocide continues in 2012 and icons of Cuban music such as Celia Cruz and Olga Guillot remain banned from the airwaves and must be discovered on the black market and in the underground. 

The Castro regime has demonstrated a great ability to distract attention from the real news in the country with non-stories such as this one.  It is one of the tools that they have used to remain in power. Unfortunately, when an activist on the island succeeds at exposing the true nature of the regime and exposes the smoke screen of distraction and demands concrete progress they are terrorized, imprisoned, become suddenly ill and die, or die in a car "accident."

Sadly international journalists on the ground in Cuba do not report on these patterns because if they do they are expelled from the country by the dictatorship as many have been over the years for even mild critical reporting of the regime.

Nevertheless, one needs to ask reporters that published articles that the music of Celia Cruz and Gloria Estefan would be heard over the airwaves in Cuba now that the regime has confirmed that is not the case will they print a retraction or a clarification? Or will the dictatorship get away with using the press once again?