Rubén Blades

Rubén Blades ranks among the foremost singers and composers within the traditions of Panamanian music and salsa. A tireless creator across recordings, films, activism, and public office, he incorporated the refined lyricism of Central American nueva canción together with Cuban nueva trova into his texts while bringing forward-looking rhythmic experiments into salsa arrangements. Working alongside Willie Colón’s ensemble, he crafted enduring pieces such as “Pedro Navaja” and “El Cantante.” The 1978 release Siembra and the 1979 album Bohemio y Poeta achieved strong sales by pairing uncommonly political subject matter with forward-thinking arrangements. Buscando América, issued in 1984 with Seis Del Solar, earned a Grammy nomination. As his screen career expanded, he appeared in numerous motion pictures; in 1994 he campaigned for the presidency of Panama and finished second. Tiempos, released in 1999, departed from salsa conventions and secured a Grammy. In 2014 Blades put out the charting album Tangos. He followed with Una Noche con Rubén Blades in 2020, recorded alongside Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. The next year he and Robert Delgado’s Orchestra delivered Salswing!, which captured a Grammy. The subsequent release, Parceiros, another Grammy recipient, emerged in partnership with the veteran Brazilian MPB vocal ensemble Boca Livre. August 2023 brought Siembra: 45° Aniversario - En Vivo en el Coliseo de Puerto Rico, 14 de Mayo 2022, conducted by Delgado.

Blades grew up in a middle-class district of Panama City. He received his musical inclinations from both parents: his mother Anoland, who had moved from Cuba, performed on piano and sang in Spanish, while his father Ruben Sr., a police investigator, played bongos. Early exposure to Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers’ doo wop style prompted him to perform North American pop and rock material as a teenager. In 1963 his older brother Luis helped form the Saints, for which Blades served as lead vocalist. Political turbulence in Panama during the mid-1960s deepened his attachment to his heritage, leading him to restrict his performances to his native Spanish.

While pursuing a law degree at the University of Panama, he maintained musical activity through engagements with Conjunto Latino and Los Salvajes del Ritmo. An album he made in 1968 with Bush & the Magnificos reached Joe Cuba’s producer in New York. Although invited to join that band, he declined so he could finish his studies. When the Panamanian government shut the university, he traveled to the United States for the first time and recorded From Panama to New York with Pete Rodriguez. After the album appeared, the university reopened and Blades returned to complete his undergraduate work. He briefly accepted a legal post at the Bank of Panama, yet soon traveled again to the United States to see his parents, who had settled in Miami in 1974.

During that visit he went to New York and accepted employment in the mail room of the Latin-focused Fania label. Within a year he auditioned in that same mail room and replaced Tito Allen as lead singer in Ray Barretto’s group. When Barretto formed a Latin fusion ensemble, Blades assumed leadership and renamed the unit Guarare. He composed and sang lead on Barretto’s 1975 track “Canto Abacua,” included on the album Barretto, and was subsequently honored as Composer of the Year by Latin New York magazine. He also continued performing with Willie Colón’s band for six years; their partnership peaked with the three-million-copy-selling Siembra, whose single “Pedro Navaja” became the best-selling single in salsa history. Blades’ socially conscious lyrics did not meet universal approval: in 1980 the track “Tiburon,” which criticized superpower involvement in the Caribbean, was barred from Miami radio.

He established his own ensemble, Los Seis del Solar, in 1982 and began presenting an energetic blend of Latin, rock, reggae, and Caribbean influences. Their first album, Buscando América, appeared in 1983. A year later he entered graduate studies at Harvard University and ultimately earned a master’s degree in international law.

From the early 1980s onward, Blades has interwoven his musical output with acting and film songwriting credits that include The Last Fight, Crossover Dreams, Critical Condition, Fatal Beauty, The Milagro Beanfield War, Dead Man Out, Disorganized Crime, The Lemon Sisters, The Two Jakes, Predator 2, One Man’s War, The Josephine Baker Story, Crazy from the Heart, Color of Night, A Million to Juan, Scorpion Spring, and The Devil’s Own. He shared the title role with Paul Anthony in Paul Simon’s Broadway production The Capeman. Although most of his catalog remains in Spanish, he issued the English-language covers collection Nothing But the Truth in 1988, featuring material by Lou Reed, Elvis Costello, and Sting, which reached the Top 200.

The 1990s kept Blades occupied with both music and politics. He issued several well-received albums, among them Ruben Blades y Seis del Solar...Live! (1990), Caminando (1991), and Amor y Control (1994). As founder of a new political party in Panama, he mounted a strong independent bid for the presidency in 1994 yet placed second behind Ernesto Pérez Balladares. In 1996 he released La Rosa de los Vientos, his initial recording with Panamanian bandleader Robert Delgado’s orchestra. He closed the decade with multiple Grammy-nominated projects, including the winning Tiempos in 1999, and captured another Grammy for 2002’s Mundo.

In 2004 Blades paused his artistic work to accept a five-year appointment as Panama’s minister of tourism. That same year saw the release of Across 110th Street, a complete collaboration with the Spanish Harlem Orchestra that won the 2005 Grammy for Best Salsa/Merengue Album. Although Live! In Concert appeared on DVD in 2006 and De Panama a Nueva York in 2008, he did not resume full studio recording until Cantares del Subdesarrollo on his own Ruben Blades Productions label in 2009, which received a Latin Grammy for Best Singer/Songwriter Album. He also rejoined his Buscando América-era colleagues Seis del Solar to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of their landmark project, resulting in the concert set Todos Vuelven Live in 2011.

Discussions with Cheo Feliciano about a joint recording predated Blades’ government service. Feliciano prepared material and tracked it with his own band using an arrangement in which each artist would reinterpret the other’s songs. Blades added his vocals after leaving office, and the album Eba Say Aja appeared in 2012. Following a world tour with Delgado’s orchestra, he issued Tangos in 2015; the charting album earned a Grammy for Best Latin Pop Album and a Latin Grammy for Best Tango Album. That year he also joined the cast of the AMC series Fear the Walking Dead in the recurring role of Daniel Salazar.

Son de Panamá, a 2016 reunion with the Robert Delgado Orquesta, won the Grammy for Best Tropical Latin Album. Two years later the same partnership produced Salsa Big Band and again took the award. In 2018 Blades appeared on Lin-Manuel Miranda’s charity single “Almost Like Praying,” created to aid victims of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. That autumn he was named NYU Steinhardt Dean’s Inaugural Scholar-in-Residence at New York University. Once more working with Delgado’s group, he released Medoro Madera, a collection centered on boleros with occasional excursions into Latin funk. Paraíso Road Gang, a 2019 futurist Latin rock album, included the single “No Te Calles” recorded with Kansas City-cum-Los Angeles Latin rock band Making Movies and earned a Latin Grammy nomination.

Una Noche con Rubén Blades, recorded with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and Wynton Marsalis, reached the Top Ten on jazz charts in 2019. The following year he again collaborated with Delgado’s orchestra on the widely praised Salswing!. Although the vigorous big-band project did not chart, it secured the Latin Grammy for Album of the Year in 2021 and the 2022 Grammy for Best Tropical Latin Album. In June of that year Blades and the Brazilian MPB vocal group Boca Livre issued Parceiros. He had first encountered the Brazilian vocal ensemble Jongo Trio in 1966 and had long hoped to record with a comparable group; Boca Livre, active since their self-titled 1979 debut, helped fulfill that wish fifty-six years later, and the project received the Best Latin Pop Grammy.

In August 2023 Blades released Siembra: 45° Aniversario - En Vivo en el Coliseo de Puerto Rico, 14 de Mayo 2022. With Delgado and orchestra he marked the historic 1978 album—the third best-selling salsa album ever—that established the singer and songwriter after he succeeded Hector Lavoe as Willie Colón’s principal collaborator. For the anniversary performance Blades fronted Roberto Delgado’s orchestra, presenting the entire original album plus encores of “Ligia Elena” and “El Cazanguero.” The charting set earned the 2024 Grammy for Best Tropical Latin Album.