My Land is Gloria Estefan's Favorite Album Even Though 30 Years Have Passed Since Its Recording

June 13, 2023

My Land continues to be the favorite album of Cuban-American singer Gloria Estefan, who, after 30 years of this work, describes it as "a 'cultural project'" that she made for her children together with her husband, producer Emilio Estefan.

"It was made to keep Cuba alive and so that our children would know their roots," Estefan told Jorge I. Pérez, journalist for Efe, in an interview in Miami on the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of an album that was not the first she recorded in Spanish, but it was the first she made in Spanish "after success in English."

"It is a project that touches the variations of Cuban music, which is so rich. Culturally it reflects Emilio and me. As artists, it has been the greatest contribution we have made to who we are. That mix (of sounds) is very real in us," affirms the singer, songwriter and actress.

With 12 songs written especially for the album, which, under the Epic Records label of Sony Music, premiered on June 22, 1993, My Land includes boleros, son montuno, cha-cha-cha and danzón and closes with a Santiago conga.

From 1993 to now, 19 million copies have been sold, says the singer with pride, and about the origin of the album she adds that when they were "at the height of success," she and her husband began to dream of being able to show the world the reason why they mixed Afro-Cuban music with their music.

"We wanted to put something new, write new songs, but that sounded as if they had been written in the 1940s, in Cuba's golden age of music, songs 'before' Castro. So we had that idea."

According to the performer, born in Havana in 1957 and who arrived in Miami at two years old, "the project started to grow."

"We talked about bringing greats of Cuban music, that's why Cachao is there (the Cuban musician and composer Israel López, who passed away in 2008), Arturo Sandoval, Paquito de Rivera and Juanito Márquez, a composer who was the king of feeling," she explains.

"We were touring around the world with music in English, and when we told the company that we wanted to do it, they thought we had gone crazy, because it was an American company. But we told them: You know? You have to trust us," recalls the vocalist of Miami Sound Machine.

Hall of Fame

Gloria Estefan, one of the most successful artists in the history of Latin music, details that the song that gives the album its title was written "with an idea from Emilio" that was ultimately perfected by Colombian composer Fabio Alonso Salgado, better known as Estéfano.

"I had been singing in Spanish long before all the English successes, so (with My Land) it was like going back to our initial idea and the songs we played here at (15th birthday parties), weddings, baptisms, but with new and original songs."

"This album was a love letter to our land and a hand I extended to Cuba across these 90 miles. Cuba continues to be very important in our life, we share something that is heritage," she emphasized.

Next week Gloria Estefan will be inducted into the Hall of Fame of American Songwriters. It is "something that means a lot to me," she said.