Fidel wrote about how when he was in the Sierra Maestra with his guerrilla (see video in previous post if you speak Spanish), he liked to clean his rifle to the sound of “Burundanga” one of Celia Cruz’ greatest hits, and one of the nasty rubs he had with the defiant Changó-daughter Celia is when she and her band refused to play it at one of her performances when he showed up unannounced and requested it.
Of course, being at heart a bourgeois, gallego white boy, it’s telling that he liked the silliest, least complex, least Afro, more Mexican than Cuban “Burundanga”. I would assume, in fact, that it was actually written for her audience in Mexico, where she was wildly popular.
Listen.
Jadde: from Bosnia to Bengal 
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