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On February 28, 1992, the Queen of Latin Soul and Boogaloo “La Yiyiyi” passed away in New York.

While Curro was scaring the children in the Cartuja of Seville, Guadalupe Victoria Yolí Raymond, a Hispanic neighbor of the Bronx of New York, died at the age of 52, in misery.

A few years earlier she had enrolled in college in order to survive on scholarship money.

 

Maybe when her neighbors heard her talk about limousines, fame, luxury and parties, they looked at her with a knowing look on their faces and played along. There you go again.

But it was true, during the sixties Victoria, La Lupe, also known then as the queen of Latin soul, bragged about being able to spend the twenty thousand dollars she earned per concert on a fur coat.

Long before the invasion of salsa there she was, La Yiyiyi, wandering from bar to bar along 53rd Street, a meeting and exchange place for Latino immigrants in the city of skyscrapers. Busamba’, ‘Boogaloo’, gentlemen.

That’s what it sounded like when Cuba slept with Mexico or Puerto Rico on the stage of any club. Salsa? No, not yet, please. It was still La Lupe’s time.

Yolí Victoria Raymond “La Lupe”

Exiled from Cuba because her singing offended the colonel, she was disputed in her beginnings by Mongo Santamaría and Tito Puente himself, with whom she made perhaps her most interesting recordings. From her first album, ‘Con el diablo en el cuerpo’, she made it clear that she was not going to be just any singer. She captivated the public with her extravagant personality and her madness.

She shrieked, shuddered, pulled her hair, insulted the audience, laughed, tore her clothes in passionate outbursts.

But she also cried and demonstrated her incredible technique when she was asked to sing a bolero. As she sang she lived. Pouring out and enjoying the joy and the sadness.

Then something happened. A new sound began to soundtrack the daily routine of the immigrant ghettos.

A less compromised rhythm that allowed evasion, at least for the duration of the dance, to all the Hispanics living badly in the United States.

Celia Cruz, for better or worse, gave salsa to the world and buried La Lupe in life.

Celia took away her throne and made sure that no one would remember her.

Fame and success is a war and Victoria no longer had the strength to participate in that battle. Her life was an earthquake.

Around that time her second husband began to develop schizophrenia and she decided to take care of her.

After that, little else is known about her until her death.

At the end of the 80’s she converted to the evangelist religion and composed a series of songs that may come to light under the name of La Samaritana.

Although surely her praises to God still sound as warm and sensual as the boleros ‘Orgasmo’ or ‘Puro Teatro’.

La Lupe

The year of her death, her friend Tito Puente and Celia Cruz were offering a conventional Latin music concert at Expo ’92.

Perhaps, at some point, the percussionist remembered when he played ‘Boogaloo’ with the first Latin queen.

As Lupe herself says in her explosive version of ‘Guantanamera’: “Sobre tu tierra divina riega mi voz campesina versos que son como flores, con los más grandes honores de La Yiyiyi, señores”.

Facebook: La Lupe

Article of Interest: Markolino Dimond’s voice and his irreverent piano in Funk/Soul & Funk-Disco “The Alexander Review”

News about the current music scene

As every month, we bring to you all of the entertainment news related to Latin music and the current situation of its most important exponents in order to keep all our dear International Salsa Magazine’s community of readers informed, which is always very aware of the latest news. 

Today, we are going to talk about two beloved stars who have left Latin music at the top because of their great talent and perseverance they have shown during their artistic careers. It is always an honor for us to be aware of all their projects and make them known through this platform.   

A new book by Sophy Hernández 

Famed Puerto Rican singer Sophy Hernández has published a book about her life entitled Sophy de Puerto Rico: Desde lo más íntimo (El poder de luchar para triunfar). In this material, the artist reflects on all she has lived through to become the person she is today and unburdens herself to certain difficult details in order to be able to forgive herself. Likewise, she also talks about some unprecedented details of her family and personal life that have not been previously shared.   

Sofia Hernandez Font (her birth name) recently commented that she has spent many years going through places that were very important to her during her childhood, so that she could begin to rehash as many details as possible about what she has been through in the town of San Sebastian, where she spent most of her years as a child. It was precisely there that her passion for music was born, which would become her career as an adult. Sophy seeks to motivate any young person who reads the book in the future to achieve their dreams despite the circumstances. 

After she has presented the book, the singer expressed that the work has served as an outlet for her, since she was able to describe on the pages those painful moments through which she passed, but at the same time, to forgive those who caused them. She also talks about the extramarital affair that her mother (black) had with a married man (white) and how she made his way up and get ahead. 

Luis Perico Ortiz’s new recording production   

Puerto Rican trumpeter Luis Perico Ortiz has recently announced that he will be recording his latest album with some very special guests. After more than a decade staying away long from the stage and dedicating to teaching, the artist has revealed that he will get back to the recording studio to record his latest album with several hugely successful singers such as Milly Quezada, Domingo Quiñones and Tony Vega. Due to the friendship that binds him to the aforementioned stars, the material will be called Sigo Entre Amigos, like the first promotional single.   

Ortiz commented how happy he was with the reaction of his friends at the moment of proposing to work with him on the album. He said that Quezada, Quiñones and Vega did not even let him finish talking and were made available to whatever he needed. 

As for the musical aspects of the album, Perico has made it known at least six of the songs will have the typical style of the salsa singer’s other works, but three others will be based on the big band concept. 

By: Johnny Cruz correspondent of International Salsa Magazine in New York City, New York

Spanish Harlem Salsa Gallery and Latin music

The Spanish Harlem Salsa Gallery is one of those places where every salsa lover in New York should visit since there is plenty to see here. This museum has all kinds of items donated by many renowned artists or relatives of some who had passed away. This collection of valuable possessions has resulted in a set of priceless objects that will bow anyone visiting the facilities of such a special institution out of water. 

The Spanish Harlem Salsa Gallery, also known as Spaha Salsa Gallery, can be defined as an institution of a cultural nature whose main purpose is to serve as a reminder of how great our culture is, especially our music. Both residents and visitors of East Harlem, New York, can learn about the salsa genre and its roots as long as they desire. All thanks to a lot of tools, information and many initiatives with which those interested will know all kinds of interesting facts about salsa first hand. 

Another of the great objectives pursued by this place is the quest for knowledge about Latin music and the artists involved to offer it to anyone who decides to visit its facilities. That is why both its president Johnny Cruz and the team that helps him have been responsible for creating an inclusive and diverse gallery in which you can appreciate how far Hispanic talent has come by the hand of its top stars. 

Role of the Spaha Salsa Gallery in the dissemination of Latin culture 

The role played by the Spaha Salsa Gallery in the dissemination of Latin culture is very important, since these institutions are the ones that manage to arouse the interest of the inhabitants of Harlem and other nearby sectors towards one of the most representative musical genres of Latinity. This has made many other cultural institutions to use this gallery in order to awaken a higher interest in its own activities, which shows extensive cooperation between those who seek to promote anything Latin-related at all costs. 

Fortunately, our work is not that complicated to carry out because too many tourists visit New York every day and many of them know that this city was the birthplace of the biggest salsa movement in history, so they are always looking for cultural sports in which you can find information about this set of rhythms and how it emerges in the public arena.   

Who Johnny Cruz is 

Johnny Cruz is the founder of the Spaha Salsa Gallery, but there are many other facets by which this talented Puerto Rican is known in the entertainment industry. Cruz is a famous musician and record producer who has worked and make friends with a wide number of artists from all genres, by providing him with the platform to create a true sanctuary for Latin music lovers. 

One interesting fact about the museum is that it is located on the plot where a hardware business owned by Johnny’s father used to function, which was made into something completely different thanks to the genius of his son long after. Today, that place contains several of the most invaluable objects in the history of salsa and whose relationship with some of the greatest figures of the genre is legendary.   

Link to the official website of the Spaha Salsa gallery: spahasalsagallery.com

By: Johnny Cruz correspondent of International Salsa Magazine in New York City, New York

How Latin soul was born

There are certain musical genres that, despite their short duration on the public stage, marked history to such an extent that they continue to be named and taken into account when analyzing the process experienced by Latin music in the United States. One of them is Latin soul, which is defined as a musical genre born and developed in the 1960s in New York City, such as in the case of many of the rhythms we have today. 

Latin soul was born of the mixing of Cuban mambo and some elements coming from the American version of soul and Latin jazz. Even though it was a set of rhythms that became relevant only in the aforementioned decade, it played a particularly valuable role in the salsa movement that was starting to take shape at that time. 

One of its most striking characteristics is that it places a lot of emphasis on its Afro-Cuban rhythms, but at the same time, most of its songs are in English, which reveals an extremely interesting mix of Cuban and American cultures. After to have acquired a little more specific style, it started to become popular among New York-based Latin artists, who used the emerging genre to win over communities of their respective countries and local media at the same time. 

Among the greatest exponents of Latin soul is Joe Bataan, an American of Filipino descent who is regarded as the most famous vocalist of the genre. Something that made him really different from the rest of the artists of his kind was the merger between American soul and salsa that was already sounded at that time. For this and many other reasons, Bataan is still seen as one of the greatest idols of those golden years of music. 

Bataan, Willie Colón, and other performers represented the emergence of a generation of musicians whose formation was the street itself and the harsh experiences occurring it. At the same time, there were others who had an academic background and studies that made them play and behave otherwise. When the union between both groups took place, the result was a display of talent that is still turning heads. All those who were trained in academies and on the street joined the new oncoming wave of rhythms. 

An important detail about this is that the Latin audience in general was eager to look for artistic role models through which to reflect their daily lives. We must remember that many of these people lived in poor conditions in some of the poorest neighborhoods in the country, so many did not really identify with educated music that came from the music academies and schools. All that changed greatly after the emergence of a group of artists who wanted to have their own place in the Anglo-Saxon entertainment business. In some cases, these young people came from an origin very similar to the one that has been described. 

This led to the creation of groups and orchestras in which formal and sophisticated music training had to coexist with other styles emerging from the humblest alleys in certain Latin neighborhoods. Music had ceased to be an elitist thing and would go on to become a mixture of different flavors and colors that were gradually brought together as the decades of the ’60s and ’70s went by. 

Around this time, the figure of Monguito Santamaría (Cuban percussionist and bandleader Mongo Santamaría’s son) emerged, who would be his biggest inspiration to take the path of music. The boy studied piano and proved a great talent for leading bands, but he needed something to push his career, since the mere fact of being a legend’s son was not going to guarantee the success he longed for. This led him to be carried away by the current of Boogaloo, another nascent genre that had gained overwhelming popularity at the time. 

From there, Monguito created his own orchestra and invites some of his schoolmates to join him, which resulted in a quite complete group in which these guys designed their own American R&B versions and sounds and an accent that made them much closer to the African-American community that loved soul and funk. This made them put aside the Latin community for a while, but that would change sooner than expected.   

Long after Monguito completed his musical studies, he and his band decided to audition for Johnny Pacheco and Jerry Masucci. Let us not forget that Santamaria and the rest of his orchestra had a typically American vision of music, but they did not put aside the Cuban heritage behind them, so they always included songs in genres from the Caribbean island. This pleased the Fania All-Stars so much that they agreed to work with the orchestra, which adapted to the exigencies of the record label without losing sight of their goal: making music for Latinos in New York. 

This is how Monguito and Bataan became the Fania artists whose repertoires were more inclined to Latin soul. In view of the great success that Mongo’s son had with his projects on the label, he continued to immerse himself in the aforementioned rhythm and to enter Boogaloo, whose popularity was at its peak at that time. 

The bad news is that there were a set of factors that did not help the musician to make history as he wanted. One of them was the birth of salsa orchestras that perfectly read the social moment that lived by the poor Latin neighborhoods of the United States, a point on which Monguito stayed in the past. He and his musicians may have been better than many other bands of their generation, but they did not know how to read the historical moment when they were in. This and his little promotion in much of Latin America made much of his legacy be buried and forgotten. 

Eddie Palmieri’s role in this process 

American bandleader and pianist of Puerto Rican descent Eddie Palmieri played a very important role in the process carried out by Latin music during its evolution into what we know today. The artist radically changed the way Latin music was perceived thanks to his spectacular mix of Afro-Cuban rhythms and certain touches typically of Latin jazz. 

During the heyday of Boogaloo and Latin soul, Palmieri did his best to mix the best aspects of soul and funk with these Cuban rhythms, which would in turn be united with a typical revolutionary message of those years. Thanks to all these messages captured in his lyrics, the musician’s repertoire became more and more present in acts promoted by leftist movements and his music was brought to several prisons, giving it a nuance of denunciation that was very difficult to ignore.  

In contrast to other talents of those years, the New Yorker cannot be classified as a salsa, Boogaloo or soul musician. This is because he knew how to handle all genres and combine them in a novel way for that time.