Yembe Laroco – Celia Cruz
How radio launched the career of Cuban salsa star Celia Cruz but also helped to rescue the country’s economy after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
In 1951, a young Celia Cruz recorded Yembe Laroco with the popular Cuban band, La Sonora Matancera. It was a song that would help to launch her international career, later becoming the ‘Queen of Salsa’. But it’s also a song that many years later would help revive Cuba’s economy, which suffered after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. Simon Zagorski-Thomas talks to musicologist and musician, Sara McGuinness, and Cuban radio producer Sonia Perez Casola about the story behind this classic track.
Produced by Rami Tzabar for ´óÏó´«Ã½ World Service.
Image: Record label artwork, ´óÏó´«Ã½
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- Sat 16 Feb 2019 05:50GMT´óÏó´«Ã½ World Service except East and Southern Africa & South Asia
- Sun 17 Feb 2019 15:50GMT´óÏó´«Ã½ World Service East and Southern Africa
- Sun 17 Feb 2019 22:50GMT´óÏó´«Ã½ World Service Online, Americas and the Caribbean, UK DAB/Freeview, News Internet & Europe and the Middle East only
- Mon 18 Feb 2019 04:50GMT´óÏó´«Ã½ World Service South Asia