There’s a certain kind of rhythm that refuses to die — even after a century.

You hear it in a horn section somewhere between Havana and the Bronx. You feel it in the shuffle of your shoulders, in the word that Celia Cruz made eternal: “¡Azúcar!”

October 21st, 2025, would’ve been Celia’s 100th birthday.

In Havana, people gathered quietly at the Basilica of La Caridad — her voice rising from old radios, her image on t-shirts and murals. But the official theater tribute? Canceled without explanation.

Even in death, Celia Cruz still makes power nervous.

Celia was born Úrsula Hilaria de la Caridad Cruz Alfonso in 1925, in the Santos Suárez neighborhood of Havana. Her voice — strong, soulful, and unmistakably Black — carried the pulse of the island. Before the wigs and the sequins, she wanted to be a teacher. But the classroom she ended up ruling was a stage.

With La Sonora Matancera, she turned son and rumba into poetry. Every note she sang carried the sound of Cuba’s Afro-descendant heart — the drumbeats, the chants, the laughter in the streets.

“She made it okay to be loud, proud, and Black in Latin music,” says Cuban singer Daymé Arocena. “Celia didn’t just perform — she testified.”

When Fidel Castro rose to power, Celia left Cuba on tour and never came back. She wasn’t allowed to.

Her parents died before she could return home. That loss stayed in her voice — you can hear it in the ache behind the joy.

She rebuilt herself in exile, in New Jersey apartments and New York studios, where a new rhythm — salsa — was being born. With Tito Puente, she became the movement’s thunder. With Fania Records, she became its queen.

In a male-dominated scene, she didn’t just command the band — she commanded the world. When she belted out “Quimbara, quimbara, quma quimbamba!” entire dance floors erupted, like the diaspora itself was rising in celebration.

In 1974, Celia Cruz took that joy back across the Atlantic. She performed in Zaire alongside James Brown and the Fania All-Stars, during the legendary Rumble in the Jungle festival.
 

It was a full-circle moment — Africa welcoming home one of its daughters through rhythm.

Grammy-winning artist Angélique Kidjo remembers that performance vividly. “Celia was the bridge,” she says. “The sound that connected Havana to Lagos, Brooklyn to Brazzaville. She carried Africa in her voice.”

And then, there’s that word — Azúcar!

She first said it to a Miami waiter asking about her coffee. But it became something bigger — a battle cry wrapped in joy. For a woman whose ancestors cut sugarcane, it was rebellion made sweet.

Every Azúcar was a reminder: We’re still here. We survived. We dance anyway.

Celia Cruz won three Grammys, four Latin Grammys, and countless hearts. She was banned from Cuba for decades — yet her voice never stopped playing in secret. Now she’s on a U.S. quarter — the first Afro-Latina to be immortalized on American currency. Not bad for a Black girl from Havana who just wanted to sing.

She passed away in 2003, but her spirit never left.
 

You can still hear her in the way salsa horns swell, in the way Afro-Latinos claim space onstage, in the way joy has become its own resistance.

“Celia taught us that to dance is to defy,” says Aymée Nuviola, who once played her on screen. “Every time she said ‘Azúcar!’, she was saying: ‘I belong to the world — and the world belongs to me.’”

At her 100th, Havana may still be divided over her memory. But everywhere else — in kitchens, in block parties, in sweaty dance clubs — her voice is alive.

Because for Celia Cruz, life was always a carnival.

And the beat? Still sweet. Still loud. Still full of Azúcar.