Being compared to all of those greats\u2014I don\u2019t think I even come close to them\u2014is really tremendous praise for me, and at the same time, it\u2019s a commitment. I listen and nourish myself from those great Cuban women singers, and also Graciela, who in the 1950s was one of the best-known Cuban singers in the United States. She and her brother Machito had the most successful big band of their time, playing Latin jazz. I\u2019ve also been influenced by Mario Bauz\u00e1, Chico O\u2019Farrill, and Chano Pozo, and I\u2019ve leaned a lot toward Puntilla, one of the great Cuban rumba players who immigrated to New York, specifically to the Bronx. There were also Patato Vald\u00e9s and Totico, other important rumba musicians who taught me a lot when I first arrived in New York more than 20 years ago. I am influenced essentially by unusual music legends, not the obvious ones that everybody knows.<\/p>\n
What did Yerba Buena mean for your career?<\/strong> Your compositions are revealing; they deal with personal thoughts and feelings and talk about your life. With whom do you compose, your angels or your demons?<\/strong> In one sequence from the film Amor cr\u00f3nico you mention that you are too much of a Havana woman to live in New York and too much of a New York woman to live in Havana. Do you still feel like that? What was your age when you left Cuba?<\/strong> What does it mean for a Cuban woman t<\/strong>o live in a city as cosmopolitan as New York?<\/strong><\/p>\n When I left Cuba I went to live in Italy. I finished studying Restoration and Art History in Rome, and my option was to go to Barcelona as a restoration assistant, to learn at Gaudi\u2019s Sagrada Familia. My passion was music. I sang back-up vocals for fun in a salsa group in Rome. Horacio \u201cEl Negro\u201d Hern\u00e1ndez, the famous drummer and a close friend, who shared the stage with me during those years, told me, \u201cIf your passion is music, then let\u2019s go to New York.\u201d So I made it there, as I say in the movie, out of my love for music. I worked as a waitress, and I did drag shows with some of the most iconic transvestites in the United States\u2014Sof\u00eda Lamar and Amanda Lepore\u2014to pay the rent. They taught me how to use makeup and to dress. That was a real You have been described as an icon of vintage fashion and the muse for several designers. How much importance do you place on your image?<\/strong> The philanthropic work that you do with your husband is very interesting. What are the main causes that you support?<\/strong> Let\u2019s talk about Salm\u00f3n, the character you play in F\u00e1tima, Perrugor\u00eda\u2019s latest film, in which you also sing.<\/strong> What is happening with the new album that you\u2019re working on?<\/strong> That\u2019s how CuCu Diamantes is: versatile, multicultural, intense, and unique. She says that after the Peace concert organized by Juanes, she was the object of hatred in certain parts of the United States because of political issues: \u201cBecause in the world, there are those who hate and those who love; I am in the group of those who love, and I don\u2019t hate those who hate. I want to convert them into those who love,\u201d she said at the time, a statement that was widely published in the media and social networks. She says that her age is mental: \u201cWhat keeps me young is laughter; I\u2019m between 20 and death, because your 20s are a time of real learning,\u201d she says, laughing. Her advice: \u201cWe should all help each other and cooperate to save the world. That is the legacy that we need to pass on to the new generations.\u201d Her biggest goal in life, like that of many, is to be happy, but hers is also \u201cto share that happiness and to do good,\u201d she affirms.<\/p>\n
\nWe have not reunited again because we are all working on our solo careers, like Descemer Bueno and Pedro Mart\u00ednez, who are doing really well. Yerba Buena was a university of total eclecticism. A very rich time, and one of immense learning and growth.<\/p>\n![\"Photo:](\"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Cucu-Diamante_30501.jpg\")
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\nI think with a little bit of both, because as artists, we have something of both for performing and creating our work. My compositions might be a result of my lifestyle or stories that my friends tell me. Everything that inspires me is in my songs, from a painting to this or that experience of a friend. I don\u2019t think of myself as a professional composer, the kind that write made-to-order songs. A song that I\u2019ve written might be used by somebody who wants to sing or play it. But for me, it\u2019s about connecting with the magic of the creative moment. I can be inspired by a story that a taxi driver tells me, or the sorrows of a neighbor, full of popular philosophy\u2026. I am nourished by ordinary people, and I manage to combine it all together with my roots. The world is local; what is universal is local; wherever I travel, I feel local, I feel like I belong there, too. Because the world is so universal, it is local in the end. I am a citizen of the world. In my career, I want every one of my albums to reflect my versatility and my passion for life and art.<\/p>\n
\nThat sentence comes from a verse by a poetess from Havana (Lourdes Casal) who died in New York. I identified with that statement during that period because it was a time in my life when I did almost 900 concerts with Yerba Buena all over the world in seven years, and I didn\u2019t come to Cuba much because my schedule was so tight. I was away from my roots, those roots that are always being reinvented here. When I came back after living in New York for such a long time, I felt different; I had
\ngotten used to life there. I faced the immigrant\u2019s problem: you don\u2019t fit here, but you\u2019re not completely inserted there, either. It was a phase that I\u2019ve gotten past. Now I feel local wherever I go. Spiritually, I\u2019ve crossed the border. Recently I screened the film in Rome, where I studied, and I felt like I was from there, too. I love
\nmelancholy, but not nostalgia for the past, because there is a present in development and you have to experience it; if you live in the past you stagnate. I love being surrounded by young people and being infected by their energy, tendencies, and tastes. It\u2019s refreshing, because these are generations that are being illuminated in a different way, and I love for them to illuminate me.
\nI am illuminated just as much by the wise people of the past as
\nI am by the new ones of tomorrow.<\/p>\n
\nI left when I was 17, almost 18. After the death of my grandmother, who did not have any schooling but was very wise about life, very street-smart, I stayed with my aunt, who is gay and very reserved. She has had the same partner for 30 years. She never talked to me about her sexuality because that was not important to me. She raised me and taught me how to be well-mannered. She also taught me how to be tolerant, to respect everyone\u2019s sexuality and religion. I find a fascination and an essence to all religions, and prefer to embrace them as one, without divisions. I\u2019m very spiritual and I really believe in energy, that it\u2019s the most powerful religion that you can pass on.<\/p>\n<\/a>
\nlearning experience for me onstage. I dressed in drag and did a whole show, which is why Pichi (Perugorr\u00eda) offered me the role of a transsexual in his film, F\u00e1tima. It is a very artistic world, and it was good for me, because I experienced the most underground side of New York. I learned a lot there about electronic music, disco and house; I was nourished by the whole artistic aspect of what it means to get into another person\u2019s skin. I still go out with them\u2026it is a world that I\u2019m never far away from because I like being up-to-date in everything. But I am a Cuban woman; it\u2019s like a virus that never goes away, and I have an incurable chronic love for Cuba.<\/p>\n
\nMy philosophy for composing songs is the same one I use for clothing: I reinvent what\u2019s already been done. I love vintage,
\nand my appearance has gotten the press\u2019s attention, like what happened initially with Amy Winehouse. Plus, for my shows I always have the collaboration of designer friends who supply me with pieces that I end up adapting to my own style. I say that in terms of image, I function as a woman under construction. The obvious bores me, and I find the 1950s ladies\u2019 look fun and elegant. I wear designs by \u00c1ngel S\u00e1nchez and use jewelry by Rodrigo Otaz\u00fa, an Argentine designer who began making his career in Europe and is very much in style all over the world. I was one of the first to trust in him, because I like encouraging new
\ntalents and being one of the first to discover them. Now I\u2019m doing another reinvention of my look.<\/p>\n
\nAndr\u00e9s and I have Music Has No Enemies, a nonprofit organization that carries out a lot of philanthropic projects for the needy. We work in hospitals with child cancer patients, taking the creative musical process to them, because it has been proven to be healing and it brings a lot of joy. The passion of creation is therapeutic. We help immigrant children, who are the object of teasing because of their accents and who barely see their
\nparents, who to achieve the so-called American dream have to work up to three jobs and don\u2019t have time for their kids. There are girls who commit suicide, and to try to prevent this, we seek them out and talk to them, show them that life is more than that. We take them to the studios and give workshops so that they can develop their passions and vocations, and achieve their purpose in life and don\u2019t become depressed. We raise funds to help them, and also for other who are sick, such as AIDS patients. We also support the struggle against gender-based violence and discrimination. We support a number of social causes, a lot of them, but you can always do more. But there we are, and we place our efforts at the service of humanity. That fulfills me, it makes me come out of the bubble that you live in sometimes, and life is better when you help people who really need it. I come from a humble family and I understand it better than anybody, which is why I\u2019m more committed to all of this. We want to start doing things in Cuba, too: go to hospitals and offer our support to the sick and needy.<\/p>\n<\/a>
\nHe fell in love with that story by Miguel Barnet, as did I. When he decided to make it into a film, he told me \u201cYou are a character in that film.\u201d I told him that there was no way I could play a man. After hearing some of my stories\u2014because we\u2019re very good friends\u2014Pichi proposed my character. We\u2019re a family united by art and ideas; but even though we share that, he had me do an audition for the part of Salm\u00f3n, Fatima\u2019s transsexual friend who has had an operation, which is why I use my own voice. I prepared the part, with all of its characterization, and I got it. It was a wonderful experience to work in a Cuban film, with great actors like Mirtha Ibarra and Carlos Enrique Almirante. It\u2019s a really lovely plot. It\u2019s about the lives of F\u00e1tima and her boyfriend, viewed from a very humane perspective, not just a simple love story between homosexuals. It\u2019s the first time that the subject has been dealt with that way in Cuban cinema. It is a love story that you can identify with, where you go through what those lovers are going through. I also composed a song for the film that I sing with the other two transvestites, Carlos and Jazz Vila. The song is called \u201cEl otro.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nA lot of musicians are involved; I don\u2019t want to give too much away, because I don\u2019t want to kill the magic before it starts. After five years, I am now completely immersed in this album production with Andres Levin and Alain P\u00e9rez. I haven\u2019t decided on a title for the album yet. I have four possibilities, but nothing firm. All I can tell you is that I\u2019m making almost all of the music videos here in Cuba.<\/p>\n