Ruben Blades: I’m on the Left, but Not the Dictators’ Left
“I want to write songs about people, not about ideology—falling into propaganda or sloganeering.”
HAVANA TIMES – Panamanian musician Ruben Blades has described himself as a “chronicler” who writes about people and avoids “sloganeering and propaganda,” since, as he says, he is “on the Left, but not the dictators’ Left.”
“Politics doesn’t corrupt—it unmasks,” he said during a session at BIME, an international music industry gathering in Bilbao, Spain.
Winner of 24 Grammy Awards, Blades recalled his studies in law, a training that not only kept record companies from exploiting him but also helped him as a songwriter. “I’m still trying to write as little as possible and say as much as possible,” he noted.
During the conversation, he reminisced about his childhood in Panama and the influence his grandmother had on his character. “From her I learned to do the right thing; from my mother I inherited my musical ear; and from my father I learned not to brag about anything,” he remembered.
Blades, who defined himself as a writer, emphasized the role of salsa as a force in creating spaces of resistance to racism. “In the 1970s in New York, on the weekends people went out dancing, and it didn’t matter what color your skin was or whether you were rich or poor,” he reflected.
He rejected the label of “conscious salsa” that has often been attached to his work.
He also dismissed being considered “the intellectual” of the genre: “That’s bragging (…) and it seems there’s a need to label everything as if it were a product.”
He explained that throughout his career he has simply “written about things” happening around him, like “a chronicler.”
The Panamanian artist stressed the importance of “communication,” which has led him to “write with empathy and solidarity, trying not to fall into the self.”
“I want to write songs about people, not about ideology—falling into propaganda or sloganeering (…) I’ve been told all my life that I’m on the Left, and I am, but not on the side of left-wing dictators,” he emphasized.
He highlighted the fact that some of his songs have been censored both in Cuba and in Miami: “Every dictator has had his own way of banning me.”
“There’s a difference between being a communist and being on the Left… there are those who claim to be leftist and they’re just scoundrels,” he added.
He also reflected on his experience in institutional politics as Panama’s Minister of Tourism from 2004 to 2009
He said he came out of those years “a better Panamanian” for having served his country: “I went inside the monster and came out convinced that a government that thinks about the people can change the country in a positive way.”
Published in Spanish by 14ymedio and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.