My land It continues to be the favorite album of the Cuban-American singer Gloria Estefan, who, after 30 years of this work, describes it as “a “cultural project” that she made for her children together with her husband, the producer Emilio Estefan.
“It was done to keep Cuba alive and for our children to know their roots,” Estefan told Jorge I. Pérez, a journalist from efein an interview in Miami on the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of an album that was not the first one he recorded in Spanish, but the first one he did in Spanish “after the success in English”.
“It is a project that plays the variations of Cuban music, which is so rich. Culturally it reflects Emilio and me. As artists, it has been the greatest contribution we have made to who we are. That mixture (of sounds) is very real in us”, affirms the singer, composer and actress.
With 12 tracks written especially for the album, which, under Sony Music’s Epic Records label, was released on June 22, 1993, My land it includes boleros, son montuno, chachachá and danzón and closes with a conga from Santiago.
19 million copies
From 1993 to now, 19 million copies have been sold, says the singer proudly, and about the origin of the album, she adds that when they were “at the height of success”, she and her husband began to dream of being able to show the world why. for which they mixed Afro-Cuban music with their music.
“We wanted to put something new, write new songs, but that sounded as if they had been written in the 40s, in Cuba’s musical golden age, ‘before’ Castro songs. So we had that idea.”
According to the interpreter, who was born in Havana in 1957 and arrived in Miami when she was two years old, “the project began to grow.”
“We talk about bringing great Cuban music, that’s why there is Cachao (the Cuban musician and composer Israel López, who died in 2008′), Arturo Sandoval, Paquito de Rivera and Juanito Márquez, a composer who was the king of feeling,” he explains. .
“We were touring the world with music in English, and when we told the company that we wanted to do it, they thought we had gone crazy, because it was an American company. But we told him: you know? You have to trust us,” recalls the Miami Sound Machine vocalist.
Hall of Fame
Gloria Estefan, one of the most successful artists in the history of Latin music, details that the song that gives the album its title was written “with an idea from Emilio” that ended up rounding off the Colombian composer Fabio Alonso Salgado, better known as Estéfano. .
“I have sung in Spanish long before all the hits in English, so (with My land) was like going back to our initial idea and to the songs we played here at (parties of) 15, weddings, baptisms, but with new and original songs”.
Gloria Estefan, happy to be the first Hispanic woman in the Hall of Fame
«This record was a love letter to our land and a hand that I extended to Cuba through these 90 miles. Cuba continues to be very important in our lives, we share something that is our heritage,” she remarked.
Next week Gloria Estefan will be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame of America. It’s “something that means a lot to me,” she told efe.
