Celia Cruz: Cuban Soul, Cuban Soil

The year is nineteen ninety aka the year of it must have been Love by Rock Sets.

Or Vogue Madonna, Hello.

Wow, nineteen ninety. We're talking about nineteen ninety Celia and Madonna at.

The same time because it's also the year that Celia Cruz, at seventy five years young, comes the closest she ever will to return into Cuba.

Since leaving the island in nineteen sixty two, Celia has seen the world. She's performed in practically every continent, filling stadiums, plazas, and concert house.

But everywhere she went, her homeland was in her heart, her voice, her every dance move.

So when Celia is invited to give her performance at the US Naval base in Guantanamo, it's clear why she says yes.

We should also know that this is more than a decade before the base would gain its present day reputation.

This was a chance to breathe the same area as she wants it as a child and as a young entertainer. At the very beginning of her journey.

She arrives with a documentarian and a reporter in tow and asks to be taken to the highest point in the base. When she gets there. In her excitement, she lets out her signature phrase Asuka. They go up and Celia looks out beyond the shore across the bay to Kaimanita, a small harbor town. Celia had sung the name of this town in one of her songs, but she had never actually seen it with her own eyes.

Okay, here come the tears.

Celia sings for the Navy personnel stationed at the base, and before she leaves for the mainland, she stops by a fence, crouches down and grabs a fistful of Cuban earth. She puts it in a styrofoam cup and decides, right then and there she will be buried with it. Get it on, MATI got no, this is too much.

Okay, I'm composed.

Today.

On becoming an Icon, Celia leaves us with a lifetime of psalms and soul.

I'm your host, Liliana Oosquez and I'm Joseph Carrio and this is Becoming an Icon, a weekly podcast where we give you the rundown on how today's most famous LATINV stars have shaped pop culture.

And given the world some extra level.

Sit back and get comfortable.

Because we are going in the only way we know how with buenas vias, buenasriesas, and a lot of opinions as we relive their greatest achievements on our journey to find out what makes them so iconic.

By the nineties, Celia had reached that era rightfully deserved by any icon nearing retirement.

H the victory lap Era.

The year before her visit to Guantanimo, she had played a reunion show with les Sonora Mantanza for their sixty fifth anniversary.

Wait, she didn't play with them for sixty five years.

No no, no, no, no no. But the band was founded back in nineteen twenty four, before Celia joined in the fifties. But it goes to show how much Celia was a part of history. Her legacies spanned multiple eras.

From the nightclubs of Cuba's yester years to the generation defining satasa of the seventies and eighties.

She had also mixed it up with musicians you wouldn't expect. There's her feature on nineteen eighty eight Vassals Vasillos with the ska band Los Bamoso's Cadillacs, and she even performed with hipster icon David byrne On his debut solo album in nineteen eighty nine.

And Last We Forget Our Queen was on the screen along with tele novelas. She appeared in movies like Mambo Kings alongside Antonio banderas Lucky and nineteen ninety five's The Bettest Family starring Alfred Molina and Angelica Wait for It, Houston.

Okay, that's big But my favorite Celia TV appearance has to be when she taught Big Bird how to dance salsa.

I thought it was so so adorbed I wanted to hug her. Ah.

I love that moment. Okay, but here's the point. Semia had become a household name. Whatever home meant for her. Her voice sounded like home to millions of fans in the US, in the Caribbean.

And beyond, and the accolades came pouring in. In nineteen ninety four, she was awarded the National Medal of the Arts, one of the United States' highest creative honors.

She had a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, a street named after her in Miami. Three honorary degrees. She was smartyo, and she had an asteroid named after her. There was no question she was an American ic, A Cuban icon, you know what? Fuck it? A global icon.

Oh and let's not forget she got Grammys.

Right you are, Joseph. Back in nineteen eighty six, she won for Best Tropical Latin Performance for Rifmo and Coresson, and then more than a decade later, in two thousand, she helped inaugurate the first ever Latin Grammys at Los Angeles's Staple Center.

And she opened the ceremony with fellow Cuban icons Gloria Estefan and Ricky Martin shout out to Season one.

That night, she won one of the very first Latin Grammys for her live album Celia Crusen Friends a Night of Salsa along with Vita Ponte.

She would win another one the next year for her album sianpre vi Videt, which we'll talk about in a bit, but first I must point out it has a cover of Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive Amazing.

But it also just makes perfect sense one hundred percent.

Celia was in New York during the golden age of disco.

Do you think she went to Studio.

Fifty four, Yes, I don't doubt it.

I need to find evidence of this because if she wasn't there, Like what was Ian Schrager thinking.

She was there? She was there, she was invited, she atty.

I know she was like her and and there's got to be a picture. I feel like she would be living it up in like seventies Studio fifty four.

Honey, she was the costume hair queen.

And you know what, it's crazy because the golden age of disco overlapped perfectly with the heyday of salsa. And let's be honest, they both have roots and mumbo, which took New York by storm before the finan years.

They moved to the beat of the same gona and it shows how natural a part of the quote unquote American music artists like Celia.

Art case in point, Celia paid tribute to another soul icon that same year. Together with Mark Anthony, she joined VH one's tribute to Aretha Franklin.

But Celia wasn't just reliving the glory days. One of the biggest hits of her career was yet to come.

And no, it wasn't a salsa standard at all ready. It was a foray into reggathon.

Oh yes, La negra.

Go Joseph. That's something I'm telling you a singing contract is coming in season thirty. La Negratubao was one of just a handful of forays Celia made into reggaton during its early crossover days.

And Honey, this was pre auto tune reggaeton that down and dirty shit and laveeha. She wears it like she had it custom made.

She was embracing the new generation's music, just like she did with Fanya in the seventies and Joseph So you know. Dumbao came two years before Gasolina Wow.

Man, seventy five years old and ahead of the trend.

In Billboard Magazine, the producer and co writer of the track, Serrio George and.

Producer for j Looh, Talia Evy, Queen Mark Anthony, just to name.

A few, described wanting to throw something new at the Queen of Salsa. He said that of all the tracks he played for Celia, the beat for La Negraumbau was the track she had the strongest reaction to.

God sounds like the cool dea who lets your do parties at her place because she likes the music. You know what I mean.

I want to be that cool like I want to be that ya do you have ada like that? No, I'm that dea on la nega tumbao. Celia matches the sabiluria of old age with the braggadocio of regaton. So she yells slash raps, I don't know, does she rap kind of like a little She says, guandola hente semue your meal seli sick? Yeah boo, I mean we did really good. Are we getting a music card?

Both of us? It's a duo probably okay, but translate this for us. What were you even saying?

Okay? So she's basically saying, when you die, people speak better of you than they did when you were living like night and day. And then she says, say it to my face, bitch, say it to my face. When you read the song title, it's really just like, oh yeah, that black girl's got rhythm.

Right when the girl comes around, everyone takes notice that girl is on her hot girl shit.

But just like Asuka means more than just literal sugar boombao, in Celia's performance means more than just rhythm.

Mm confidence, attitude, patience, power, and not taking no shit.

She then continues these fruito biende la vida amando me.

She's enjoyed her life well, but that doesn't mean she hasn't had to fight her battles.

She's the boss, and maybe that's why Sechel George called her an ambassador of good music. For the use of time understatement, Let's talk about Celia's iconic.

Looks, the wigs, the dresses, stop it.

There's so many looks that we could reference here, but I think what people really remember is like, there's like a peacock gown that she wears. It's like blue almost kind of like the very like deep red, like burgundy hair. There's obviously like the orange dress with the feathers and the blonde hair.

Wait wait, wait, but I know something about you, because duh, you're a stylist. So what what is the style of her dress called? Is it like a trumpet dress or like a mermaid dress?

I love that you brought that up. So when you think of her and you think of the Celia Barbie.

Her Celia dress, like, it's like, I don't know what it's called.

I love that you're calling it the Celia dress. Yes, so it's called a batta kubana is what it's called. And that is that kind of like signature, very form fitting through the bodice, through the legs to the knees that then flares out almost like a mermaid style. But then you also have to have the big, billowy trumpet sleeves to match.

Always the sleeves were there. It wasn't without because maybe without hey, maybe without it would be like a tango dress or a flamenco dress, because it kind of has that exactly.

But that was really kind of signature to her early performance looks. And then as of course, as she got older in age, she loosened the gowns up. But she never gave you anything less than drama, drama, drama, whether it was sequence or a feather or a Peluca, the Beluca now the Belucas.

Honey. She was Nicki Minaj, She was everybody. She she was the wig store. Yeah.

And you know there's this famous quote at her fashion that she says, if I look in the audience and see somebody dressed better than me, I feel like I have failed. People pay good money to come hear me sing, but also to see me saying, and I should always look the part. Buntal Hereriet.

She just keeps on giving and serving.

She does but Joseph, we can't just talk about her looks forever. And she was serving serving me.

Excall me, excouse me. What are you talking about? Of course we can or I can.

Okay, yes we can, but.

No, nope. She got her Grammys and we got songs to crunk until Kingdom calm. So story over, Sorry, Joseph, that's how it ends.

That's not okay. After the break, the world says goodbye to Celia Cruz. In the summer of twothwo thousand and two, Semya I was playing yet another jam packed outdoor festival, Central Park Summer Stage in New York. Hold on a second, hold the phone, story time, shut your butt, tell me everything. Okay. I was not there in two thousand and two, but okay, blocked. Did you know that my first real paying media job was as a host of the show Central Park Summer Stage on NYCTV.

No way, how crazy that we're talking about it, I know, And.

It's one of my favorite things about New York City is all of the free concerts that come to Central Park every summer. And it also gave me my very first opportunity to cover music on television.

That is really cool. Well, Okay, so you weren't there in two thousand and two.

I was not.

This was during one of New York's hottest summers on records. So I'm glad for you. And that is a sweaty show.

Yeah, I remember these summer shows. We would be drenched. I don't even understand how Celia could put on that kind of performance. But old age hadn't slowed Celia down, at least not yet.

Behind the scenes, Celia was battling breast cancer. Shortly after her summer stage performance. She would undergo multiple surgeries in August and September.

Unfortunately, her medical battles would continue. In November, she was diagnosed with glioma, an aggressive form of brain cancer. The following month, she underwent surgery again.

She would later reveal her diagnosis in People in Espano, saying, when the doctor told me I had a tumor, I told them, well get rid of it, which, my god, the fearlessness.

Right in the month leading up to the interview, she recovered at her home in Fort Lee, New Jersey, where she says she did not shed a single tear. She's a bad bitch, And.

After she recovered, she got right back into their courting booth to finish her next album, Regalo de Lalmaesumbao all Right.

Baby, speaking of which in February she would pick up her fourth Grammy, winning in the Salsa Album category for lad Ne Gratienne Dumbau.

Then in March, Telemono produced a blowout tribute special for Celia in Miami. Multiple generations of star seng Lorena's hits for her, Mark Anthony Victor Manuel, Gloria Stefan Tenam, a few Patti LaBelle even jumped in on Kimbarra, and Gloria Gaynor closed the sect with I will.

Survive, but that's not all, folks. Then Celia joined the entire lineup on stage during a nearly twelve minute encore performance, mashing up Gimbara with her cover of I Will Survive.

This huge, explosive celebration of Celia's life would be her last public appearance.

On July sixteenth, two thousand and three, Celia passed away at her home in Fort Lee. She was seventy seven.

Her remains were transported to Miami and displayed inside the Freedom Tower, the History the work building where refugees from the Cuban Revolution were processed in the sixties.

An estimated crowd of seventy to two hundred thousand mourners lined the streets outside.

Then Celia's remains were transported back and north. She would be buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.

In a short memorial for Entertainment Weekly, David Byrne would write, her voice embodied sensuality, pleasure, melancholy and spirituality simultaneously. In that one voice, you could hear millions. Sixteen days later, Celia's final studio album, Reggaalo de Lalma, was released. The album featured a mix of modernized Latin pop and traditional salsa. Two singles were.

Released, Celia's other regaton banger aat Enna Fuego and rey Illora Laugh and Cry, the last song Selia ever recorded.

Cuban writer Jose Kidoga called the song an appeal to live for the moment. In it, Celia sings, it's not that I remember, but that I don't forget.

Get.

That's forgiveness, to remember without pain.

To go through what Celia went through in her life and be capable of forgiveness, I feel.

Like you have to be superhuman, and we know that she was, but maybe it takes great pain to truly know how to forgive. And all throughout her career, Celia sang about that pain, about her yearning to return to her homeland.

In her last song on that subject, Portia Regresso in English, in Case I never come back, she literally describes this pain as something that would kill her.

Celia never got to return to Cuba, but even with the band on her music still in place, some Cuban musicians on the island would recognize her legacy. Celia died just two days after her old piano accompanist Gombe Segundo.

Silvio Rodriguez, the Cuban folk singer, would remark, I imagine the two of them must be up on a cloud having a good time, gom By playing and Selia singing. I hope that's the case.

As we were working on this episode of the podcast, I immediately started thinking about my grandmother and how she never got to go back home either, Like she never traveled a lot once she kind of settled here in the United States, and she never went back to her hometown where she was born and where she grew up. And part of me like really aches about that for her, because I think that experience happens to a lot of people who come here and choose to never go back

Well, you know. I think it's because she was always hopeful for it.

Yeah, she was able to go once.

To me, she thought she could go again. And I also think she also lived a hopeful life.

One thousand percent. I think when people listen to her music, or they listen to some music and you just hear it, right, like if you don't speak the language, and you're just like taking in the energy of the song. Right, it's like an energy transfer when you're listening to music room where and you're appreciating art, whatever it is, If you just take in that energy transfer, there is a joyfulness to her music that exists regardless of the subject matter.

It's more. It's more than that. It's more than what this sentence.

It just gives more. So please forgive if like when we say it in English, it's like, well, that doesn't sound right. No, it doesn't sound right because it's not meant to be translated, right. But I just had to add that footnote because often when we translate, I feel like it loses all of the heart and language and spirit of it. So okay, moving on.

Sinceelia's passing, streets and schools have been named after her in theronx, Miami and throughout Latin America, the Smithsonian would put up an exhibit honoring her life and featuring several of her most iconic dresses.

In twenty twenty one. I remember this very clearly. Mattel released a barbie in her honor, clad in her classic red rumbera dress, and this year she was put on the quarter belting in that same dress, along with her catchphrase, Joseph, give it to us Asuka. But most importantly, Celia's music continues to bring Cuba as she lived and remembered it to the world.

Camilla Cabello saying that she can visit Cuba through Celia's songs, and in.

Twenty nineteen, African artist Angelie Kidjo won a Grammy for her album of afrobeat renditions of Celia's classics titled Simply Celia.

Whether she had even a glimmer of an idea of where her voice would lead her, Celia would leave this world having changed it forever.

Four years after Celia's death, her husband, collaborator and the business partner, Fedro Knight, passed away at the age of eighty five.

The two are buried together in the same mausoleum at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. Next Time on Becoming an Icon the Queen.

Of the Hanno. Music to Becoming an Icon is presented by Sonoo and Iheart's Michael Guda podcast network. Listen to Becoming an Icon on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast