Ruben Blades Quotes

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  I think we risk becoming the best informed society that has ever died of ignorance.

  Ruben Blades

  Topics in Risk, Society

  Tags in Ignorance, Informed

• They’re making a ton of money, and no one is getting a nickel.

  Ruben Blades

  Topics in Money, Uncategorized

• And music was a very important part of our lives. The radio was on all day.

  Ruben Blades

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Music, Dancing

• A lot of times you’re just conditioned by what’s around you.

  Ruben Blades

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Condition

• I decided we should book ourselves, so I started booking the band.

  Ruben Blades

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Decided

• Anywhere you had a commerce center, you had a lot of music.

  Ruben Blades

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Commerce

• And, he’d seen me in Panama, and he talked about maybe doing something in New York so I hooked it up when I came here and I recorded in 1969 my first album with Pete Rodriguez.

  Ruben Blades

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in About

• Every band had their own distinctive sound, but it was pretty much dancing music and rhythmic music with a tremendous emphasis on copying the Cuban models.

  Ruben Blades

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Music

• But, when I was about thirteen, I began to sort of sing in my neighborhood.

  Ruben Blades

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in About

• I was the first person to come into New York with a Latin American point of view which was also very much influenced by political happenings in Latin America.

  Ruben Blades

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Person, Come

• It doesn’t make sense for me to be a lawyer in a place where there is no law.

  Ruben Blades

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Lawyer, Sense

• I didn’t do drugs, I never did do drugs. Never. I don’t have any story of drugs, you know, to speak of. Never did drugs, never was interested in drugs and then I wasn’t interested in the people around the drugs.

  Ruben Blades

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Drugs

• I think in New York we had respect and we would pretty much fill up the places where we went, but I never got the sense that we really were Number 1 here in New York among the Latin crowds.

  Ruben Blades

  Topics in Respect

• I was a kid, and I remember my mother singing. She was also a radio soap opera actress, but my mother sang.

  Ruben Blades

  Topics in Mother

• In those days the big U.S. labels didn’t have any particular interest in the Latin market.

  Ruben Blades

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Labels

• I was born in Panama, the Republic of Panama, on July 16, 1948 in Panama City, in an area called San Felipe.

  Ruben Blades

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Born

• It’s almost as if people think that in Latin America we’re not hip to what’s happening here.

  Ruben Blades

  Topics in America

  Tags in People

• Rock is young music, it is youth oriented. It just speaks for a generation.

  Ruben Blades

  Topics in Youth

  Tags in Music

• People are a lot smarter than anyone gives them credit for being.

  Ruben Blades

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in People

• So everything that ever happened, we knew about in Panama.

  Ruben Blades

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Happened

Ruben Blades (33)

Birth:	16th July, 1948
Nationality:	Panamanian
Profession:	Activist, Actor, Musician, Lyricist, Singer

About

Rubén Blades Bellido de Luna professionally known as Rubén Blades is a Panamanian salsa singer, songwriter, actor, Latin jazz musician, and activist, performing musically most often in the Afro-Cuban and Latin jazz genres.

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