Diana Fuentes - THE MATRIX

→ is a small world ("6 degrees") ARTISTS RECOMMEND ARTISTS network → ALL are within reach of ALL → creating unprecedented access to artists anywhere on planet earth! Viva!!!

I RECOMMEND

Diana Fuentes...

RECOMMENDS 0 people/categories

↳ outgoing recommendations by the matrix

Who I Am & Where I Live:

Name: Diana Fuentes
City: Miami, Florida
Country: United States
Hometown: Havana, Cuba

My Life

Biographical: Drawing on a rich musical heritage and a comprehensive artistic education, the critically acclaimed Cuban singer and songwriter Diana Fuentes could be one of Latin music’s best-kept secrets.

But in 2019, Diana is taking her place a top emerging artist, and Latin music lovers will get to enjoy her highly anticipated third solo album, titled Libre. It is her first LP since Planeta Planetario in 2014.

We got a preview of Libre in 2017, with two singles that are included on the album – “La Fortuna,” featuring the Puerto Rican singer-songwriter Tommy Torres, and “La Vida Me Cambió,”featuring the Cuban duo Gente De Zona. These songs became low-key treasures, discovered by enough listeners to chart at #29 on Billboard’s Latin Pop Songs and #10 on Tropical Songs, respectively. Even better, “La Fortuna” was nominated for Song of the Year at the 2017 Latin GRAMMYs®.

During 2018, Diana Fuentes stayed on our radar as a special guest on singles by Cuban talents El Micha and Lenier.

In April 2019, she released Libre along with the title-track third single. “Libre”is a contemplative song that speaks of the need to turn the page on life’s stages even when it means saying goodbye. Filmed in Havana by the talented Cuban director Yeandro Tamayo, the music video features plenty of local color.

Diana Fuentes explains that the album's title is personal: “I'm free in my music, in my life, in my ideas…free to be able to decide what should and should not be part of my life.”

This album furthers her reputation for making satisfying amalgams of traditional Cuban music with up-to-the-minute rhythms and themes, along with lyrics that speak to young listeners.

Produced by the multiple GRAMMY® and Latin GRAMMY® winner Eduardo Cabra, Librealso features creative collaborations with the Brazilian great Seu Jorge, the Dominican singer and songwriter Vicente García, and the Cuban sax legend César López.

Diana Fuentesbegan her artistic career as a girl in the Laura Alonso Ballet Company. From there, she continued on to the prestigious Alejandro García Caturla Conservatory of Music and finally to Cuba’s National School of Art, where she studied choral direction. Upon completing her education, she joined the Afro-Cuban fusion group Síntesis, remaining a member from 2001-07, and participating on the group’s album Habana a Flor de Piel, which was nominated in the 2002 Latin GRAMMYs® for Best Contemporary Tropical Album.

During the same period, she worked with the Cuban singer-songwriter X Alfonso, appearing on his album X Moré, which was also nominated in the 2002 Latin GRAMMYs®, for Best Rap/Hip-Hop Album. In addition, she served as a guest vocalist on tracks by such standout artists as Amaury Pérez (“Algo en Común”), Roberto Carcasés (“Mambo”) and Aldo López Gavilán (“Talking to the Universe”).

She contributed to Cuba Canta a Serrat, a Cuban tribute album to the Barcelona-born singer-songwriter Joan Manuel Serrat. Furthermore, Diana appeared with the iconic Cuban singer Omara Portuondo on producer Roberto Carcasés’ album Women are Beautiful, and with the legendary vocalists and composers Silvio Rodríguez and Pablo Milanés on producer José Luis Barba’s album Cubans.

These collaborations led to a fortuitous meeting with the producer Descemer Bueno, who offered to record her first solo album Amargo Pero Dulce(Bitter But Sweet, 2008), which is influenced by R&B, pop and soul. With her second album, Planeta Planetario (Planet Planetarium), Diana Fuentes began to garner more international recognition. She still remembers her first visit to the United States, in 2010: “The first time I came was on tour with the Cuban singer Carlos Varela. He undertook an intensive tour of the United States.” Now this Havana-born artist resides in Miami where she is poised to make even bigger strides toward widespread acclaim.

Libre is a family affair, with important songwriting contributions from her mother, Mirta Lavastida. Diana Fuentes is convinced that family support has been key to her growth: “I come from an outstanding matriarchal family. My grandmother Aurora, who also appears in the ‘Libre’ music video, has taught all of the women of my family to take the reins of our lives, with great respect but also great determination.”

Diana adds that she is passing this example on to her young son: “My life’s most important work is that of a mother, and it takes all of my time, primarily because I want to be a mother that my son will be proud of. But I notice that my son is so happy when he sees me making music. That helps me, and gives me great fortitude to keep developing my career.”

THE MATRIX IS MUSICIAN / ARTIST RECOMMENDATIONS BY THE MOST POWERFUL, SOPHISTICATED & SUBTLE SOFTWARE YET DEVISED:

⇒ the minds of other artists

IT'S BASED IN BAHIA, GROUND ZERO FOR BRAZIL'S SUN-CARONA VIBRANT AFRO-BRAZILIAN CULTURE

⇒ ...rooted in a region called the Recôncavo, analogous in Brazil to the Mississippi Delta in the United States.

THE MATRIX REACHES FROM BRAZIL TO CUBA TO BROOKLYN TO BERLIN TO TOKYO TO TIMBUKTU

⇒ To wherever people want to take it...

IT IS THE NEXT-STEP EVOLUTION OF A SPECIALTY RECORD SHOP

⇒ ...opened in Salvador to showcase magisterial musicians almost completely unknown to the world...many of them living in poverty or close to it and unable to avail themselves of traditional (and costly) means of publicizing.

PRE-BRAZIL — IN NEW YORK CITY — WE "RESCUED" UNPAID ROYALTIES FOR PERFORMERS & COMPOSERS INCLUDING:

⇒ Aretha Franklin, Barbra Streisand, Led Zeppelin, Philip Glass, Mongo Santamaria, Airto Moreira, Gilberto Gil, Astrud Gilberto, Jim Hall, Taj Mahal, Robb Royer of Bread, Speedo & the Cadillacs, and many more! With Speedo's (Earl Carroll) amazing story (kid singing on the streetcorners of Harlem to doo-wop fame to working as a beloved school janitor) I learned (as Quincy Jones had figured out decades before) that greatness and fame are completely independent. The wave repeated here in Brazil with Raimundo Sodré, who went from zero to national fame and back to zero.

HENCE A (and so far the world's only) SMALL WORLD CURATION NETWORK...

⇒ A wave of Exu's cyberwand opening pathways allowing ANY ARTIST — FAMOUS OR NOT — in ANY FIELD — in ANY PLACE in the world — to potentially be reached by ANYBODY from ANYWHERE. (Exu -- eh-SHOO -- is the Afro-Brazilian deity responsible for opening pathways.)

BY WHAT WIZARDRY?

⇒ We've all heard of six degrees of separation, more properly called a small world network. Within six or so steps we can move through a chain of people knowing other people to just about anybody on the planet.

SIMPLY CHANGE "KNOW" TO "RECOMMEND"

⇒ In exactly the same way, step by step we can move through chains of ARTISTS CURATING ARTISTS to to just about any artist on the planet.

LIKE THIS...

⇒ From Quincy Jones we access one of his protégés, stellar young Cuban pianist Alfredo Rodriguez. From Alfredo Rodriguez we access a fabulous multinstrumentalist Alfredo plays with, Munir Hossn. Two more steps and we've reached the above-mentioned Raimundo Sodré, formerly virtually unreachable in Bahia...

Raimundo Sodré Now

Dengo

Add to my Playlist

Sina de Cantador - Raimundo Sodré (6,525 plays)
Add to my Playlist

Magnetismo - Raimundo Sodré (6,229 plays)
Add to my Playlist

Sacando a Cana - Raimundo Sodré (5,877 plays)
Add to my Playlist

Mêrêrê - Raimundo Sodré (5,402 plays)
Add to my Playlist

A Massa - Raimundo Sodré (4,958 plays)
Add to my Playlist

Jardim do Amor - Raimundo Sodré (4,631 plays)
Add to my Playlist

Debaixo do Céu - Raimundo Sodré (4,112 plays)
Add to my Playlist

Desejo de Amar - Raimundo Sodré (3,823 plays)
Add to my Playlist

Oração pra Yá Oxum - Raimundo Sodré (3,701 plays)
Add to my Playlist

Yá África - Raimundo Sodré (3,472 plays)
Add to my Playlist

Meu Rio, Cadê o Papel - Raimundo Sodré (3,148 plays)
Add to my Playlist

Casa de Trois - Raimundo Sodré (2,868 plays)
Add to my Playlist

Mulher é Laço que Prende o Coração do Va... (2,531 plays)

Share | Report | 57,277 plays | 9,571 views

DICTATED SILENCE

⇒ Sodré's meteoric major-label career was crushed by the Brazilian dictatorship years ago and he was forced to flee Brazil under threat of death...into a 19 year exile. He became almost impossible to find and hear, even after returning to Brazil.

MUSIC FALLS LIKE RAIN

⇒ But now lines of everbranching interlinked recommendations rise from Bahia to form a (small world) network rounding the planet like the arboreal canopy of a vast Amazonian rainforest. When the dictatorship ground Sodré into the dust, they unwittingly planted a seed.

FROM SODRÉ, A WORLDLINE TO SPLENDID BULE BULE (LEATHER HAT) ABOVE... AND TO OTHERS IN THE CLIP...

⇒ "The time has arrived for these people of color to show their worth ... I want to see Uncle Sam play tambourine so the whole world can samba!"

AND FROM BULE ON...

⇒ ...tendrils twining through urban centers and beautiful backwaters... through New York boroughs, Burkina Faso... County Clare... Cape Town...

THROUGH ARTISTS ACROSS THE BOARD

⇒ ...writers, journalists, photographers, painters, illustrators, architects, choreographers, filmmakers...

IS THE MATRIX AN ALTERNATE REALITY?

⇒ Only if your reality has been defined by corporate mass media. The original meaning of "matrix" is "source", from "mater", Latin for "mother". We're real mothers for ya!

DOES THE MATRIX WATCH YOU?

⇒ Zero surreptitious tracking, data mining and data brokerage per Cambridge Analytica, Facebook, et al.