Tiffany Dufu, an author, founder, and CEO of The Cru, informed through its social media account that she explained to her twenty-year-old niece that there was Gloria Estefan before Selena, J.Lo or Shakira.
Estefan is a Cuban-American singer, actress and songwriter and eight times Grammy award winner. She was counted among the list of top 100 greatest artists of all time by Billboard and VH1.
Dufu remarked that she became the first Hispanic woman inducted into the Songwriters’ Hall of Fame last week. She wrote, “When I told my twenty-something-year-old niece how excited I was, she admitted that she didn’t know who Gloria Estefan was”.
But as soon Dufu started singing, “Come on, shake your body, baby, do the Conga,” her niece beamed and started singing along to the globally recognizable anthem. She explained that When “Conga” came out in 1985, she recorded it to a cassette tape from the radio and played it over and over, then begged her dad to let her have MTV so she could watch the video. Estefan has been mesmerizing the world ever since.
Little Gloria was born in Havana in 1957 and was always musically inclined. Her family fled to Miami as part of the Cuban Revolution, and later, she became part of the group Miami Sound Machine. She married the band’s leader, Emilio Estefan, in 1978, and they’ve been married ever since.
Strength, hard work and consistency have sustained her life and career. In 1991, at the height of her stardom, she made a comeback after a tour bus accident left her with a fractured spine. She’s won eight Grammys and has been honoured with a Presidential Medal of Freedom.
She’s sold more than 100 million records – the second highest-selling female artist of Latin descent – and was honoured with the American Music Award for Lifetime Achievement. She has so many hits it’s likely you could create a Gloria Estefan soundtrack for your own life.
This latest accolade was long overdue as the 65-year-old goddess has had such a breathtaking impact on global music and culture. Estafan is recognized as the Queen of Latin Pop.
