Daymé Arocena grew up in a working-class district of Havana, Cuba, where music
and religious beliefs came together. The daughter of a soul and jazz fan, she
immersed herself in local rumba and Afro-Cuban rhythms to create her own style.
Trained to sing in a choir, Daymé Arocena benefited from the Havana Cultura
project, which enabled her to record and attract the attention of DJ and
scouting talent Gilles Peterson, who signed her to his Brownswood Recordings
label. The result is the album Nueva Era, sung in Spanish, Yoruba and English,
which received immediate critical acclaim on...