Rubén Blades is a man of many talents. As an actor, he has worked with the likes of Robert de Niro and Jack Nicholson, and at home in Panama, he has been a lawyer, a political activist and has even run for president. But above all else, Blades is a composer and vocalist, and one of the world’s most successful Latin artists. His socially engaged lyrics are a characteristic feature of his music. His ‘thinking man’s’ salsa, sometimes combined with jazz and rock, has won him many Grammy Awards and Latin Grammys. For his latest album
Fotografías (2025), he collaborated with the
Roberto Delgado Big Band, and not for the first time: Blades and Delgado have worked together for decades. The songs on their latest effort have one common trait among them: they will make it impossible to stand still. After all, people don’t call Blades ‘the poet of salsa’ for nothing!
