Rubén Blades Rocks with “Paraiso Road Gang”

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This post is also available in: Español

Rubén Blades returns to his origins in rock in the “Paraiso Road Gang”. Although Rubén uses different genres in this album, his messages remains the same.

Note: for the version “en Español” of this blog, click HERE.

In “Rubén Blades Presents Paraiso Road Gang”, the 70-year Salsa legend brings a fresh musical perspective to his politically and socially-charged songs. Salsa fans may be disappointed with the lack of the tropical rhythm. But Ruben fans still get great story-telling songs with messages that stimulate reflection, along with music that simultaneously entertains.

Where did “Paraiso Road Gang” Come From?

Ruben Blades presents Paraiso Road Gang album cover
Ruben Blades takes a break from Salsa with “Paraiso Road Gang” but keeps delivering the same type of messages.

As Rubén Blades writes in his website, the album title reflects an era when the Panama Canal project was sold from France to the United States. Back then, the newly created “Canal Zone” brought with it a new set of injustices by wrongly applying foreign rules in Panamanian land.

These injustices led to the creation of the jail in the “Paraiso” region of the “Canal Zone”, where prisoners did forced labor.

More Songs for Reflection

Songs like “No Te Calles”, “Panamá Gris”, “El País”, and “Nación Rica, Nación Pobre” continue to raise awareness to the political conditions that we as people need to get engaged in making them change for the better.

In “La China Medina” and “Love Me or Hate Me”, the poet of Salsa brings the social elements his sharp eye brought us musically in his early works like “El Cazanguero”, “Pedro Navaja”, and “Ligia Elena”.

My Take on “Paraiso Road Gang”

Is hard to pin-point a prevailing musical genre in this album. This is so much so, that the Irish bag pipes from “Mundo” (2002) made a return here.

All in all, “Paraiso” is another musical experiment by Rubén Blades; you might remember the trilogy of “La Rosa de los Vientos” (1996), “Tiempos” (1999), and “Mundo” (2002), and later “Tangos” (2014), all of which experimented with different musical formats and genres. “Paraiso Road Gang” goes along those lines, continuing Rubén’s trademark of bringing political and social stories for our consideration.

As I said, Rubén Blades fans will likely find it an interesting musical proposal. Salsa fans may prefer his “Salsa Big Band” and “Medoro Madera” approach.

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