Buena Vista Social Club is an album (and film) that has influenced not only a wealth of contemporary artists, but also had a profound effect upon myself and my contemporaries over the years.

I grew up in a house full of music. My father was, is, à musician and played in reggae, ska and soca bands as we grew up. We, my siblings and I, spend our childhood (between the violence and beatings) immersed in, dancing and listening to amazing (non western) music. My connection to music in my younger days was a little...tender to say the least. It was hard to accept the wonder, joy, beauty and spirituality of the music my father introduced me to because of who he was, what he did to me (read DV). So for many years as a teenager and young adult I became immersed in rock, metal and punk, and then techno and electronica probably as a way to run away from him and remove myself from everything he represented. I am grateful for that sidestep, because it taught and gave me a lot too, but when this album came out it captured...everything I have ever loved about music and maybe allowed me to accept my early connection to music in a way that I had not been comfortable with before. This music was freedom to me in every sense of the word, but also nostalgia. My father's music had somehow come to represent the opposite of freedom, but Buena Vista put me back in touch with some of the soul and rhythm I had garnered in my youth. It also circled a well needed square within me and reignited my love of dancing. It is, to this day, one of my all time favourite albums...

I normally dance to one of the more up beat songs off this album: Chan Chan, El Cuarto del Tula or Candela, but this song is (for me) one of the most beautiful and unsung heroes of this album... Melancholic and uplifting... Pueblo Nuevo (New Town)... Vamanos... ❤️