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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 BBC World Service.
Image: Record label artwork, BBC
Last on
Mon 18 Feb 201904:50GMT
BBC World Service South Asia
Broadcasts
- Sat 16 Feb 201905:50GMTBBC World Service except East and Southern Africa & South Asia
- Sun 17 Feb 201915:50GMTBBC World Service East and Southern Africa
- Sun 17 Feb 201922:50GMTBBC World Service Online, Americas and the Caribbean, UK DAB/Freeview, News Internet & Europe and the Middle East only
- Mon 18 Feb 201904:50GMTBBC World Service South Asia
