Celia Cruz

Who is Celia Cruz?

Celia Cruz was a Cuban singer widely celebrated as the "Queen of Salsa," one of the most influential voices in twentieth-century Latin music. Born in the Santos Suárez neighborhood of Havana, she began her professional career in the late 1940s and rose to fame in the 1950s as the lead singer of La Sonora Matancera, one of Cuba's most popular orchestras. In 1960, following the Cuban Revolution, she left Cuba while on tour and never returned, settling permanently in the United States, where Cuban authorities later denied her re-entry even to attend her mother's funeral. In exile she partnered with musicians including Tito Puente and the Fania All-Stars, helping define the New York salsa sound of the 1970s. Known for her powerful voice, her signature exclamation "¡Azúcar!", and her flamboyant stage costumes and wigs, she recorded more than seventy albums over her career. She won multiple Grammy and Latin Grammy Awards and received the United States National Medal of Arts in 1994. Cruz died in Fort Lee, New Jersey, in 2003 and remains an enduring icon of Cuban and Latin American culture.

Sources: Celia Cruz with Ana Cristina Reymundo, Celia: My Life (2004) · National Endowment for the Arts, National Medal of Arts citation (1994) · Grammy Awards official records