The grandmother, the mother, the worker, the student, the intellectual, the professional, the unemployed, everybody identified with the songs because they were descriptions of life in the city. – Ruben Blades
So I went to Miami in ’74 with my family and while I was there it became obvious that we needed money and we needed to do something, because my family, we left without anything really, and we didn’t have any money to begin with. – Ruben Blades
Tango was very popular in Panama at the time when I was growing up. In the Fifties in Panama, the radio stations played all types of music. – Ruben Blades
I was the first person to come into New York with a Latin American point of view which was also very much influenced by political happenings in Latin America. – Ruben Blades
I was born in Panama, the Republic of Panama, on July 16, 1948 in Panama City, in an area called San Felipe. – Ruben Blades
I was a kid, and I remember my mother singing. She was also a radio soap opera actress, but my mother sang. – Ruben Blades
So that I saw music as a way of documenting realities from the urban cities of Latin America. – Ruben Blades
What is interesting in this is the exchange of music that occurred between New Orleans and Cuba, I mean, they had ferries that would go from one port to another. – Ruben Blades
I didn’t do drugs, I never did do drugs. Never. I don’t have any story of drugs, you know, to speak of. Never did drugs, never was interested in drugs and then I wasn’t interested in the people around the drugs. – Ruben Blades
I think being born in Panama was a blessing because Panama is a port city. It’s a really – the mentality is that – I remember that of admitting things in. You know, ports, ideas come in and out all the time. – Ruben Blades
So that when I came to New York again, it was, I’m not too sure right now, but it was ’74 or ’75. I went to Miami in ’74 and then I came to New York, I think, at the end of ’74. – Ruben Blades
