Ruben Blades Quotes

It doesn't make sense for me to be a lawyer in a place where there is no law.

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.

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.

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.

It's almost as if people think that in Latin America we're not hip to what's happening here.

I decided we should book ourselves, so I started booking the band.

The first time I played was in Buenos Aires - was in 1983. The dictatorship was in position.

It was very interesting, and we went to Germany and we toured Germany like we were a German band in 1985.

What I do not accept is the fact that so many people's talents were ripped off.

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.

Basically, I would like to be considered for roles that are well-written. I think that part of the problem that we've had as actors is that they insist on looking at us as Latino actors and not as actors, period.

I was born in Panama, the Republic of Panama, on July 16, 1948 in Panama City, in an area called San Felipe.

They're making a ton of money, and no one is getting a nickel.

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.

And music was a very important part of our lives. The radio was on all day.

Tortured characters are, I think, an actor's dream.

So everything that ever happened, we knew about in Panama.

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.

So that in 1974, when I graduated as a lawyer, I figured I'm not going to be a lawyer under a military regime.

I was always interested in trying to find how different genres would affect the lyrics that I'd written. Salsa is where most of my songs have been recorded, the genre of salsa. It's very frenetic, fast-paced. And I felt that the lyrics sometimes were being lost.

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.

My mother never finished elementary school. My father didn't, and that was a reality for many of us.

There was a lot of stuff happening in Havana that was being heard and appreciated by New Orleans musicians because of this situation. And vice versa.

Anywhere you had a commerce center, you had a lot of music.

Rock is young music, it is youth oriented. It just speaks for a generation.

But, when I was about thirteen, I began to sort of sing in my neighborhood.

In those days the big U.S. labels didn't have any particular interest in the Latin market.

So that when I came from Panama ... my family was exiled in 1973 and they went to Miami.

You know, it was uncomfortable doing the same thing. I don't like a rut.

There was no television, so the radio provided you with everything.

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.

Everyone comes back. It makes no difference how far we wander, we always have our country, our land, in our souls and our minds.

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.

A lot of times you're just conditioned by what's around you.