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Outlook: Drums like a heartbeat: The boy who took Afro-Uruguayan music to the world

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15/01/2024 GMT

Drums like a heartbeat: The boy who took Afro-Uruguayan music to the world

BBC World Service - Outlook, Drums like a heartbeat: The boy who took Afro-Uruguayan music to the world

Singer Rubén Rada started performing in carnival groups when he was just 10 years old

Singer Rubén Rada's contemporary fusions of Afro-Uruguayan candombe music took traditional music to new heights. But he had to endure poverty and racism to get there.

Rubén Rada is a giant of Uruguayan music. As a small child he nearly died of tuberculosis, but once he recovered he threw himself into the country's famous month-long carnival, playing in various popular bands when he was just 10 years old. Rubén's musical career, spanning seven decades, has won the admiration of Sir Paul McCartney and he once taught Sir Mick Jagger how to dance candombe - the Afro-Uruguayan music that he's championed since childhood. But it took Rubén decades of singing and facing racism, hardship and even self-imposed exile in Europe, before he could really make a living from his music in his home country.

Producer/presenter: Louise Morris 
Voice-over: Nandy Cabrera

Get in touch: outlook@bbc.com or WhatsApp +44 330 678 2707

Clip of Ruben's concert at the Auditoria del Sodre in Montevideo:  Carnaval, Música y otros inventos

(Photo: Rubén Rada.  Credit: Louise Morris)

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