Biography

Celia Cruz was born Úrsula Hilaria Celia de la Caridad Cruz Alfonso de la Santísima Trinidad in Havana, Cuba, in 1925. Cruz grew up in the working-class neighborhood of Santos Suárez, where she was exposed to diverse musicians and performers who influenced her future singing career. Cruz began performing on local radio stations and she recorded her first track in Venezuela in 1948.

She was known for singing guarachas, a style of Cuban music with rapid tempo and comic or picaresque lyrics, earning the moniker “La Guarachera de Cuba.” During this time, she coined her trademark shout “¡Azúcar!” in response to a waiter at a restaurant in Miami who asked if she would like her coffee with sugar. As she, a black Cuban woman, continued to use “¡Azúcar!" as an interjection in songs and performances, it took on greater meaning as a remembrance of enslaved Africans who worked on Cuban sugar plantations.

Cruz became known around the world as the “Queen of Salsa.” In 1990, she won her first Grammy Award for her album Ritmo en el corazón. Always singing in her native Spanish, she recorded seventy-five records, twenty-three of which went gold, and received a host of honors and awards including the National Medal of Arts and a posthumous Lifetime Achievement Grammy.

“Celia Cruz.” National Museum of African American History and Culture, https://nmaahc.si.edu/latinx/celia-cruz. Accessed 6 Mar. 2024.