Rubén Blades is a Panamanian singer, songwriter, actor and politician from Ciudad de Panamá, Panama. Born in 1948, he works in both Spanish and English and is known for salsa songs that bring literary and political weight to the genre, drawing on the style of South American nueva canción and Cuban nueva trova.

Early life and move to the United States

Blades studies political science and law at Panama’s Universidad Nacional and works as a lawyer at the Bank of Panama before moving to the United States in 1974. He first stays in Miami with his exiled parents before settling in New York City. His father is a percussionist who becomes a detective, and his mother is a singer and radio performer. His grandfather, Reuben Blades, is an English-speaking native of St Lucia who comes to work on the canal, a family history he later refers to in the song “West Indian Man”.

Music career

In New York, Blades begins writing songs while working in the mailroom at Fania Records. He soon works with Ray Barretto and Larry Harlow, then starts collaborating with trombonist and bandleader Willie Colón. Together they record several albums, including Siembra (1978), which becomes the best-selling salsa record in history.

After 1980, Blades tries to end his contract with Fania, but is required to record several more albums for the label. He later signs with Elektra and records with a large band known as Seis Del Solar or Son Del Solar. His output includes Escenas, which wins his first Grammy, Agua de Luna, based on short stories by Gabriel García Márquez, Antecedente, another Grammy-winning album, and Mundo, which also wins a World Music Grammy. He also releases an English-language collaboration with Sting, Elvis Costello and Lou Reed, and in 1999 records Tiempos with the 12-piece Costa Rican band Editus, an album that marks a break from his earlier salsa work.

His best-known song is “Pedro Navaja”, about a panderer whose time to die has come.

Film, theatre and composition

In the early 1980s, Blades begins writing film soundtracks. His first acting role comes in The Last Fight (1982), where he writes the title song and plays a singer turned boxer facing a champion played by Salvador Sánchez. He gains wider recognition in Crossover Dreams (1985), which he co-writes and stars in as a New York salsa singer trying to break into the mainstream. Other film appearances include The Milagro Beanfield War (1988), The Two Jakes (1990), Mo' Better Blues (1990), Devil's Own (1997), Cradle Will Rock (1999), where he plays Diego Rivera, and Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003), where he plays a retired FBI agent.

He also heads the cast of Paul Simon’s Broadway musical The Capeman in 1997. A documentary about him, The Return of Ruben Blades, debuts at the Denver Film Festival.

Politics and public life

Blades wins 20% of the vote in his unsuccessful 1994 bid for the Panamanian presidency and founds the party Movimiento Papa Egoró. In September 2004, Panamanian president Martín Torrijos appoints him minister of tourism, and he serves in that role while putting his artistic career on hold.

He receives the ASCAP Founders Award in 2005.