Profile via TMDB · Courtesy of TMDB
OverviewAI-generated
Rubén Blades Bellido de Luna is a Panamanian musician, singer-songwriter, actor, and politician born in Panama City in 1948. He is a baritone vocalist who speaks Spanish and English. His musical career, which began in 1974, encompasses rock, salsa, world music, latin jazz, and latin pop. He has recorded for Elektra and Fania Records and is represented by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers.
Blades has received the Gold Medal of Merit in the Fine Arts and a Grammy Award for Best Tropical Latin Album. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has held the position of minister. He was educated at Harvard Law School and has a sibling named Roberto Blades. He has also worked in business or sport with Willie Colón.
Synthesized by Vinony from 32 facts across 5 sources: Wikidata, MusicBrainz, Last.fm, TMDb, Vinony collections. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.
Film & TV
Panama City, Panama
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Rubén Blades Bellido de Luna (born July 16, 1948) is a Panamanian salsa singer, songwriter, lawyer, actor, Latin jazz musician, and politician, performing musically most often in the Afro-Cuban and Latin jazz genres. As songwriter, Blades brought the lyrical sophistication of Central American nueva canción and Cuban nueva trova as well as experimental…
Known for
- Campeón Gabacho2026
- Salsa Lives — Ruben Blades2025
- Stevie Van Zandt: Disciple — Self2024
- Stay Homas. The Band That Shouldn’t Exist — Self - Singer2024
- Nueva York: A Musical History of Latin New York — Self (archive footage)2021
- Red Pill — Rocky2021
- El accidente feliz — Self (Archive Footage)2020
- Raúl Juliá: The World’s a Stage — Self2019
- Ruben Blades Is Not My Name — Self2018
- John Leguizamo's Latin History for Morons — Self2018
via TMDB
Music · MusicBrainz
- Type
- Person
- Gender
- Male
- Origin
- Panama
- Active from
- 1948
Discography
via MusicBrainz · CC0
Listeners · Last.fm
- Listeners
- 184,015
- Total plays
- 1,922,045
Tags
Rubén Blades (born July 16, 1948) is a Panamanian salsa singer, songwriter, actor and politician. As songwriter, Blades brought the lyrical sophistication of South American nueva canción and Cuban nueva trova to salsa, creating thinking persons' dance music. He remains wildly popular in that country and much admired throughout Latin America, and he managed to attract 20% of the vote in his failed attempt to win the Panamanian presidency in 1994. <a href="https://www.last.fm/music/Rub%C3%A9n+Blad
Key facts
- Born
- Rubén Blades Bellido de Luna , ( 1948-07-16 ) 16 July 1948 (age 77) , Panama City , Panama
- Occupations
- Musician singer composer actor activist politician
- Years active
- 1974–present
- Spouse
- Luba Mason ( married</span>"}]]}'>m. 2006 )
- Origin
- New York City
- Genres
- Salsa Latin jazz Latin pop world Latin rock Pop rock
- Instruments
- Vocals maracas guitar
- Labels
- Fania Elektra Sony Columbia
- President
- Martín Torrijos
- Website
- www .rubenblades .com
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- human
- Gender
- male
- Citizenship
- Panama
- Place of birth
- Panama City
- Sibling
- Roberto Blades
- Occupation
- singer-songwriter
- Position held
- minister
- Educated at
- Harvard Law School
- Languages spoken
- English language
- Genre
- world music
- Instrument
- voice
- Record label
- Fania Records
- Official website
- www.rubenblades.com
- Image
- Ruben Blades by Gage Skidmore.jpg
- Voice type
- baritone
Show 9 more facts
- Commons category
- Rubén Blades
- date of birth
- 1948-07-16
- start of work period
- 1974-00-00
- birth name
- Rubén Blades Bellido de Luna
- name in native language
- Rubén Blades
- copyright representative
- American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers
- social media followers
- 586000
- partner in business or sport
- Willie Colón
via Wikidata · CC0
~18 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Rubén Blades Bellido de Luna (born 16 July 1948), known professionally as Rubén Blades ( Spanish: [ruˈβem ˈblaðes], but [- ˈblei̯ðs] in Panama and within the family), is a Panamanian musician, singer, composer, actor, activist, and politician, performing musically most often in the salsa, and Latin jazz genres. As a songwriter, Blades brought the lyrical sophistication of Central American nueva canción and Cuban nueva trova as well as experimental tempos and politically inspired Son Cubano salsa to his music, creating "thinking persons' (salsa) dance music". Blades has written dozens of hit songs, including "Pedro Navaja" and "El Cantante" (which became Héctor Lavoe's signature song). He has received 21 Grammy Award nominations, winning twelve of them, along with twelve Latin Grammy Awards.
His acting career began in 1983, and has continued, sometimes with several-year breaks to focus on other projects. He has prominent roles in films such as Crossover Dreams (1985), The Milagro Beanfield War (1988), The Super (1991), Predator 2 (1990), Color of Night (1994), Safe House (2012), The Counselor (2013) and Hands of Stone (2016), along with three Emmy Award nominations for his performances in The Josephine Baker Story (1991), Crazy from the Heart (1992), and The Maldonado Miracle (2003). He portrayed Daniel Salazar, a main character on the TV series Fear the Walking Dead (2015–2017; 2019–2023).
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Rubén Blades” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.