How could we not pay tribute to Willie Colón? We’ve spun, glued, capsized, and overturned so many times to his songs! Willie Colón, the bad boy of New York salsa, the guy who arrived from the Bronx with his trombone in the early 70s, when the Bronx was the heart of drug dealing and the rise of cocaine, chose to distance himself from gang culture and mix jazz, cha-cha-cha, and jibara music, launching Puerto Rican salsa in New York. And that’s how, with his solid brass foundation, he ended up with the best: Celia Cruz, Rubén Blades, Ismael Miranda, but it was especially with Héctor Lavoé that he revolutionized salsa with their first album, El Malo! That’s how, thanks to him and Fania Records, salsa set out to conquer the world.
I remember the 80s, when we had set up a small radio station in St Rémy de Provence “S.I.S. Alpilles” in Southern France, we opened our ears to the sounds of New York when hip hop was just beginning to emerge, and in the nightclub “La Forge,” where we played records to get people dancing the night away to salsa rhythms, how many times did I get couples twirling thanks to Willie Colón. Later, at Radio Nova, with La Sono Mondiale, we always managed to include him in the mixes that played through the night to make Paris dream and get through the night.
And it’s no coincidence that Bad Bunny, the singer of Nuevayol, paid tribute to him on the night of his death during a concert in Sao Paulo, singing: “Willie Colón, me dicen el malo, ey. Porque pasan los años y sigo dando palo,” which means “Willie Colón, they say I’m bad, because the years go by and I keep hitting.”
Okay, enough bullshit, it’s time to dance! Go ahead, download these mixtapes with MediaHuman and play them loud. You can drink rum and dance all night long. We owe him that much! ¡Gracias por todo, Willie!
OK, now, you can go to bed!