Introduction
Cuba is a country that is both fascinating and enchanting. The plethora of colours that it radiates is heartwarming and magical. Despite being punished with a draconian embargo with people only earning 4000 Pesos a month, the equivalent of £130 a month, this is a country of survivors, politically and culturally driven, breathing life into a world that is essentially stuck in time with 1950s classic cars, the spirit of Ernest Hemingway, hand-rolled cigars and rum that is dark and stormy.
As the sun sets over breathtaking architecture that is eclectic and diverse, lighting up the fall of dusk with Neoclassical, Baroque and Art Deco influences, buildings painted with bright and exuberant colours and accompanied by a nightlife where music, dance, food and alcohol entwine. In the middle of this oasis of activity is the Amadeo Roldán Music Conservatory, a hive of cultural talent where the best of the best perform their musical skills. An establishment that is driven by the success of the Cuban musical revolution in the 1990s and the sounds of the Buena Vista Social Club.
The Beating Heart of Cuba
One of the key players in the success of this musical revolution has been the highly talented female artist Brenda Navarrete—a lady who can feel the beat of the music and whose voice is as silky as Sade’s. Mixing traditional Cuban music with pop and rap, her genre of music makes you want to dance and shake your hips. A hypnotic brand of music that is highly driven and charged. Music that is fuelled by the sounds of guitars, piano, drums and trumpets. Brenda’s music whisks you away to a Cuban club, sultry and divine. Where the alcohol flows, the cigar smoke billows and bodies entwine in passionate dancing.
Femme Cuba
With a solid foundation of Latin, Jazz and Afro-Caribbean influences, Brenda Navarrete has created a type of music that fits perfectly into the World Music genre—collaborating with the Cuban music elite, including Obini Bata, Jazz musician Joaquin Betancourt, Alain Perez, Munir Hossn and Roberto Carcasses. Brenda is an accomplished singer, percussionist, composer and arranger. Her voice and music epitomise the rhythms of Cuba.
Highly influenced by the classic voices of Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan, Afro-Caribbean rhythms and Latin Jazz, Brenda knew that she wanted to persue a career in music from an early age. After graduating from the Amadeo Roldán Music Conservatory in 2009, she gained attention as a percussionist with the Afro-Cuban percussion troupe Obini Bata before joining the internationally renowned Interactivo project of Roberto Carcassés as a singer. In 2017 she played and sang on pianist Hilario Duran’s album, Contumbao, for Toronto-based label Alma Records, who then commissioned her album, Mi Mundo, in 2018: an aptly titled mix of her eclectic influences featuring an all-star cast of Cuban instrumentalists, including legendary bassist Alain Perez and master drummer Horacio ‘El Negro’ Hernandez.
Working in Havana’s iconic EGREM studio where Buena Vista Social Club and countless other legendary records have been produced, Brenda produced her iconic song “Siempre Si” as well as “Rumbero Como Yo” and “Baba Eleggu”. An artist featured in Clive Myrie’s recent BBC programme, Clive Myrie’s Caribbean Adventure, showcasing her wealth of skill as a singer, dancer, mentor and coach. Revisiting regularly her training ground of the Amadeo Roldán Music Conservatory, Brenda was filmed enthusing young Cuban artists in a studio. An ensemble of instruments and musicians that just started playing and went where the music and their bodies took them. Clive who believes he has Cuban heritage because of his surname was blown away by this practice session and even went on a Cuban set of drums during the music session, shaking his hips and dancing when he wasn’t drumming. An iconic Cuban singer, Brenda has helped fuel the Cuban music scene and created music that is mesmerising and genuinely brilliant.
