"Ruben Blades: A True Icon of the Americas"
2001

A Salsero with a Message

When you speak of intelligent, empathy and politically charged salsa music,
Ruben Blades name comes up every time. His gift of merging politics and
music is simply put amazing. His bold compo.sitions and tales of political
duress, urban despair and the common man's woes has honored those killed for political gain and given a voice of compassion and understanding to the
inhabitants of the streets and the plight of the new immigrant.

Before Blades lyrics, their voices and faces remained mute and invisible,
appearing occasionally as sound bites on the six o'clock news.
An accomplished musician, composer, actor, international attorney (with two
law degrees -one in Panama, the other from Harvard University), politician
running for the presidency of his homeland Panama, and a social activist
fighting for worldwide human rights, Blades' music and lyrical content for
the past 30 years has brought a social consciousness and depth to popular
Salsa music that no other artist to date has matched. Over the years Ruben
has gained a reputation as "a musician and man for the people."

"What I have been doing has nothing to with popular trends," states Blades.

"I know my life would be easier if I sang: 'Let's go mama, let's go party!,'
but I don't think that is my life's purpose."

During the creation and recording of "Tiempos," Blades went through a lot of personal changes: the ending of his marriage, turning 50 and, as he says it himself, "becoming aware of my mortality."

There were also problems defining the direction of the CD. "I tried to make
a collaboration between the group that played on "Los Vientos" and Editus,
but it wasn't working. I actually had two different compos.itions, two
records in one -and it wasn't flowing," says Blades.

"I realized that what I wanted to do was advance on the subject that was being offered by Editus, which is the classical.

This happened to me once before when I did "Amor y Control," when my mother became ill and I felt I had to write a love piece. Originally I set out to do sort of a study of where we were after 500 years of the 'Discovery. 'But all that changed."

"Tiempos" has turned out to be a mature and reflective, yet delicate social view of the world.

Blades has once again evoked the listener to feel, dream and dare to think differently.

"I thank my mother, my father and my grandmother, who was with me at all
times," says Blades.

"My abuela Emma instilled me with a sense of
justice-that we can all serve as part of the solution."

Reflecting back, Blades comments: "She was a very interesting [and] very special woman. A woman who taught me to read by age five and was obsessed with culture."

Because of her passion for culture, Emma would read to him on a host of
topics like cultural politics, Picasso and Cubism.

"Because I learned to
read at an early age, my world became a universe as opposed to being limited
by the reality that surrounded me," explains Blades.

By age six Blades himself had developed an intense interest in learning -and read anything
from art to classics like Jules Verne's "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea", Mark Twain's "Tom Sawyer" and Homer's "The Iliad."

"I learned from my family [that] you can be anything you want to be. But
you have to have order, tenacity, discipline -and you have to be fair. You
don't base your happiness on someone else's unhappiness,¡¨ declares Blades.

"They taught me [that] you have to educate yourself. Education is a
never-ending process. That is the perspective from which I developed."

His mother and father filled their home with music from all over the
Americas, setting a solid base for his musical career to come: Latin artists
like Benny More Perez Prado and Orquesta Casino de la Playa; jazz musicians
like Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington and Nat King Cole; and, of course,
plenty of calypso music from artists like Lord Cobra, Mighty Sparrow and Lord Delicious.

At age fifteen he joined his brother Luis' doo-wop band, The Saints ,
and began his professional singing career. The Saints played gigs around Panama City, enjoying local fame and each member earning three to four dollars each per show. The band sang -in English- all of the U.S.
rock-n-roll standards.

But all that changed in January 1964, when North American students in the
Canal Zone refused to raise the Panamanian flag alongside the United States
flag -a direct violation of the U.S.-Panama agreement. This incident set
off four days of the bloodiest, most tumultuous and violent rioting in
Panama's history. In the end, twenty-two Panamanians and three United States soldiers were killed, over 500 Panamanian citizens resulted wounded and hundreds were jailed. No apology was ever issued by the United States
government to the Panamanian people for the loss of so many.

"Something snapped [in me]. I couldn't justify this," said Blades in an
interview with Hispanic Biographies.

"They [the United States] were supposed to be the good guys."

Disenchanted, Blades began reevaluating his belief system, steeping himself deeply in the study of Panama's history and politics. From then on, Blades began composing and singing in Spanish.

Since his beginnings, Blades' musical career has been interconnected to his
political ideals. In his late teens he discovered Argentine singer-composer
Piero, a musician whose compos.itions talked about social issues he saw in his native country.

A remarked influence on Ruben was Piero considered himself more a storyteller than a singer, and he was well known for two songs:
"Mi Viejo"  (My old man), a ballad about an old man who can be found in any town in the world, and "Pedro Nadie" (Peter Nobody), a song based on a real life peasant who considers himself a nobody.

Blades found in Piero's music a way to  communicate a message.
He then began writing and composing in a more political form.

After composing "Pablo Pueblo," the story of a factory worker whose life
seems to be at a dead-end but remains hopeful it will get better, Blades met
with Piero hoping to persuade him to record the song. Piero turned him down, advising Blades to record the song himself so there would be two of them sharing a message of hope to the people.

Panama a Nueva York a Panama

While in New York, he recorded his first album in the bugalu genre, "De Panama a Nueva York: Pete Rodriguez Presenta a Ruben Blades."

The album failed; bugaloo was losing popularity and the audience and record sales weren't there.

Disappointed and at a crossroads, Blades, upon hearing the university had been reopened in Panama, returned to earn his first law degree.

"I didn't study because of a simple interest in law, but because it keeps you out of the ghetto," he explains.

"It validates your intelligence. The diploma demands respect."

Ruben took a job for $73 dollars a week
working in the mailroom of the famed Fania Records label, where he met and auditioned for the great conga player Ray Barretto.

Blades sights his reason for attending Harvard was a means to prepare himself for an eventual political career in Panama.

"I want to be known as something more than a performer to Panama," comments Blades.

"I will not run again for political office unless I can spend 24 hours, 365 days a year concentrating and focusing on it."

"I really like working on films that are interesting and intelligent."

We [Latinos] really don't get that many opportunities because of the way things are structured. We don't have the political clout in this country. So we
really don't get that much consideration," Blades explains.

"When you look at the majority of films, they revolve around the white experience; and the second most important segment is the English speaking black experience. When you look at the Latino community, we are not there. We are pretty much in the posit.ion, blacks used to be in the 50s -we are stereotyped," says Blades.

"In the late 30s and 40s, there was more of a Latino presence when President Roosevelt came up with the Good Neighbor Policy Act -there was a tremendous concern about Nazis creating bases in Latin America. Everybody got into a the 'Good Neighbor' policy, from comic books all the way to up to Disney with [the film] "The Three Caballeros."

Blades contends the Latino presence continued into the late fifties with
Desi Arnaz and the "I Love Lucy" series.

"But after the Castro scenario in Cuba we were cast in a different [light]. All of a sudden we we're like: 'Who are these people!' It's very hard to get an opportunity to work. It doesn't matter if you are light skinned, like me, or black because you are considered a foreigner."

But Blades has managed to push past the barriers over the years, refusing to
play the stereotypical parts of coke dealer, drug addict, or gangster.

Blades asks: "Doesn't anyone want me to play the part of a lawyer?"

His film career encompasses 23 films, garnering him two Emmy nominations and cable television's prestigious ACE Award for "The Josephine Baker Story." He is recently starring in Tim Robbins' "Cradle will Rock" where he portrayed Diego Rivera and in the spring Billy Bob Thornton¡?s "All the Pretty Horses."

I think, if I were to become involved in directing, [I'd make] a documentary that has to do with the bettering of humanity. I think a great documentary would be to record the experience of the Canal Zone."

As far as the new, upcoming Latino directors graduating from cinema schools, short-term intensive film programs, or doing it on their own, Blades feels that "the economic scenario gets people to change their posit.ion. Trying to get opportunities to do films based on one's background (pause)... the struggle...(pausing and thinking to himself)...but then later on, if success or attention comes their way, it seems to me that most people -not everyone- want to be not just recognized by the mainstream, but they want to become that. If you look at the movie El Mariachi, that was an excellent movie! The second film he did [director Robert Rodriguez] he got more money but never touched what he did in the [first one]. After that,
he did something else -and it slowly it became watered down."

Ruben concludes:

"I think that Latin Americans, we have to really create our
own voice. Instead of complaining about Hollywood not giving Latinos
opportunities we should make our own movies and try to create conditions
that would make people in Latin America watch [them]. I'd like to work as a
producer on Spanish speaking films in Panama."

He sites his prominent, "most memorable moment was meeting Rosa Parks.

I admire her because of her dignity. The fact that she didn't plan this, it
was just a reaction. A human reaction that set forth a national and
international change," says Blades.

Rosa Parks , a church-going, hard-working African American woman, is
accredited with igniting the flame that started the Civil Rights movement in
United States in the late fifties.

Back then the south was racially separated: anyone non-white could not eat or drink in the same places as whites, could not vote, attend white colleges, receive equal pay for the same job, nor live in the same neighborhoods as whites -and when taking public transportation had to sit in the back of the bus.

Ms. Parks, then approach.ing her sixties, *****ed the bus to go home after a
long day of work. Since there were no empty seats in the back of the bus
and no passengers in the front, she decided to sit in the front. She was
arrested and taken to jail. This spurred an outcry not only in the African
American community but worldwide. The African American community organized throughout the South, boycotting any restaurants, stores, and public transportation system that supported racial separation. They walked to work, social functions, formed car pools for those who couldn't walk. Their actions caused such a major strain economically that government gave in and met their demands for equality.

Discussing racial inequality in the United States, Blades commented:

"This country hasn't gone to pieces because of the Constitution. It is
interesting that in a country of immigrants there is so little voluntary tolerance. The level of tolerance that exists is merely legal. It's the
Constitution what permits equality. But not an acknowledgement that is born
from the heart. And this has nothing to do with racism because you are talking about emotions Haitians are treated very badly -black Dominicans,
black Panamanians, black Puerto Ricans- by the English-speaking black community. Because somehow they are competing on an economic level with
their interest. I go back and think: Then it's not about race."

Blades notes social changes in the United States with respect to the Latino
community are slow in coming due to misconceptions.

"The Latino community
is not a race. The Latino community is a mix," says Blades. He insists that,
politically, there is "no unifying point. We are still viewed as foreigner¡?s -including [those] that were born here. I don't see the necessary changes happening on a political level, in terms of organization. So we should draw form our common background in terms of our idiosyncrasies
and regional culture in general."

In terms of a solution, Blades says:

"I think Martin Luther King was the best. Because of what he said: "I would like to see my children grow up in a country where people are judged by their character." I think that is one of the best things I have ever heard anybody say. So, I think it's about solidarity. We need to be [in] solidarity with each other as people, not in terms of races."

Future Plans and Hopes

Looking into the future, musically, Blades says about his next CD:

"We're going to be exploring the connection of Celtic music with Latin music. I'd like to know more about the influence of European music in Latin music."
His production company, Ruben Blades Productions, is concentrating on record distribution. "Editus has five CDs but no distribution. I am trying to
create distribution for them and other Panamanian acts as well, Rumulo
Castro, Son Miserables, and others, " comments Blades.

"It's hard, but I am
very confident we're going to do it. Either by creating our own distribution or through the [existing] channels."

Blades continues to educate himself. "I am very interested in archeology,
paleontology, and have an interest in fossils. I'd like to know more about
those things." But he says,

"The part of my life I have not fulfilled is having children. That's a big hole in my life something I haven't done because I think that if you are going to have children, then you better take care of them. Have children when you can dedicate time to them, nurture them in their first years, molding their character and giving them all your love and the best you have. I had this and I want my children to have this too. I hope to God I will have that chance."

Ruben has touched many lives through his music, films and social activism by speaking out for the betterment of society and giving courage and support to those who take action. Of all the awards he has won, perhaps his fans devotion and respect is the best reward when someone tells me they enjoy my music, liked a film or support the same political cause I am rewarded and overwhelmed with a sense of gratitude.

I know in my life I have been blessed and hope that I can continue to give back not only as an artist but as a man.