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" Every band had their own distinctive sound, but it was pretty much dancing music and rhythmic music with a tremendous emphasis on copying the Cuban models. "
Ruben Blades
Dancing
Band
Music
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" I was born in Panama, the Republic of Panama, on July 16, 1948 in Panama City, in an area called San Felipe. "
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" I collected the 'Walking Dead' comics. "
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" I decided we should book ourselves, so I started booking the band. "
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" Everyone has a black guy inside them. Mine is a Cuban sonero who is 80-something years old and sings better than I do. His name is Medoro Madera. Medoro has been recording since 1997. "
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" To fix Panama, you need more than charisma and records: you need a program of action. "
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" 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
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Interesting
" But, when I was about thirteen, I began to sort of sing in my neighborhood. "
Ruben Blades
Sing
Neighborhood
About
" Yes, I was going to law school and it was closed in '69. "
Ruben Blades
School
Yes
Law School
" I'm planning to retire from salsa. I'm planning to do a farewell tour. "
Ruben Blades
Planning
Tour
Retire
" There was no television, so the radio provided you with everything. "
Ruben Blades
Television
Radio
Everything
" I really think that music itself, being one of the greatest possible vehicles for mass communication, should be probed to its extremes, to see how effective it can actually become, which is one of the reasons why I became also interested in presenting political points of view. "
Ruben Blades
Communication
Music
Think
" People are a lot smarter than anyone gives them credit for being. "
Ruben Blades
Credit
People
Smarter
" I was a kid, and I remember my mother singing. She was also a radio soap opera actress, but my mother sang. "
Ruben Blades
Remember
Singing
She
" I think in New York we had respect and we would pretty much fill up the places where we went, but I never got the sense that we really were Number 1 here in New York among the Latin crowds. "
Ruben Blades
Respect
New
New York
" So that in 1974, when I graduated as a lawyer, I figured I'm not going to be a lawyer under a military regime. "
Ruben Blades
Lawyer
Military
Regime
" 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. "
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Political
American
New York
" I think we risk becoming the best informed society that has ever died of ignorance. "
Ruben Blades
Society
Best
Knowledge
" It was very interesting, and we went to Germany and we toured Germany like we were a German band in 1985. "
Ruben Blades
Germany
Like
Interesting
" Not everybody goes to government to serve themselves and not their country. "
Ruben Blades
Serve
Country
Everybody
" At a certain point, people in Panama thought that everything was going to be solved as soon as Noriega was gone. Of course, the disappointment was huge. "
Ruben Blades
Gone
People
Thought
" A lot of times you're just conditioned by what's around you. "
Ruben Blades
Just
Conditioned
Around
" Anywhere you had a commerce center, you had a lot of music. "
Ruben Blades
Had
You
Lot
" And music was a very important part of our lives. The radio was on all day. "
Ruben Blades
Day
Radio
Part
" 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
Without
Family
Left
" 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
New York
Now
End
" 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
Think
Ideas
City
" I don't accept ideologies that are not a product of consensus. I don't have an ideology, but I do have a sense of what's right and what's wrong. "
Ruben Blades
Wrong
Product
Accept
" In general, both in Spanish and English, the quality of the entertainment media is horrible. "
Ruben Blades
Media
Quality
Horrible
" So that when I came from Panama... my family was exiled in 1973 and they went to Miami. "
Ruben Blades
Panama
Miami
I Came
" I was never particularly a part of the following of tango; I just liked it... most of all, I recognized that the urban content and the approach seemed very familiar and very connected to the songs that I was doing, the kind of songs that I wanted to write - the songs about the street. "
Ruben Blades
Content
Doing
Street