Rhythms, rumba, and music were the heartbeat of Cuban singer-songwriter Daymé Arocena’s home. “I never decided to become a singer or a musician,” she remembers. “That’s what I have been doing since I can remember.”
However, her household definitely had a huge impact on her music development. “They could start the rumba by just playing on top of the table or the dining table,” she tells CREMA. And that is just a glimpse of her musical upbringing.
Her father’s love for American soul, funk, and jazz, including cassettes from Earth, Wind & Fire, Sade, and George Benson, also shaped her musical influences. She was exposed to genres like R&B, jazz, and African American music, but was equally grounded in rumba and timba.
At just ten years old, she began formal training at a conservatory, studying classical music and training as a choir conductor. “My training was based mainly on Russian music and European classics.” This classical discipline, combined with her Caribbean soul, became her signature blend. “Probably you can hear all of that in my music as a singer, as a writer,” she adds.
1 Last year, Daymé’s song “A Fuego Lento,” featuring Vicente García, was nominated for Song of the Year at the 2024 Latin Grammys. For Daymé, the news didn’t bring immediate happiness but instead led to a time of isolation. “That was a weird feeling. I decided to isolate,” she says. “My therapist said to me that sometimes you try to push a very hard wall, and when that wall finally falls apart, you fall apart with the wall.”
It was not just about the nomination; it was the years that came before it. “I have been working for so long, not always waiting for recognition. Since I’m coming from a different background and coming first from Cuba, which is a country that doesn’t have a music industry development.”
The recognition came with a shift in how she was perceived. “Because at the end of the day, when you get nominated for the Grammy, the way people look at you is totally different,” she says. None of her previous albums had even been submitted to the Latin Grammys, but when it first happened, she was surprised. “I wasn’t expecting much,” Daymé confesses.
She had written “A Fuego Lento” when she was nineteen. Years went by before she found the courage to release it. “When I finally decided to release the song, and that song got nominated for Song of the Year… my brain wasn’t ready to process that information.” Daymé shares that she felt imposter syndrome during this time and opened her eyes to a different world. “I also realized that for many people who knew my music. They didn’t know I was a songwriter. Every single album that I released in the past is fully written by me.”
2 To honor and respect her songwriting side, Daymé recently released a personal EP titled “Daymé y Yo,” featuring tracks like “Amor de Invierno” and “American Boy – Daymé’s Version.” It’s intimate, raw, intentional, and a love letter to the duality of her soul. Daymé says that some songwriters go to schools and camps to learn how to compose songs, but in her case, her introduction to songwriting was her own notebooks. “I started my first song notebook when I was eight years old,” she shares. “It comes to me naturally, and it’s a way for me to release things that I have inside.”
The EP symbolized a return to self, just Daymé and her piano. The inspiration for it came after a conversation with a friend who was shocked to learn she writes all her own music. “I’m just the girl that sings her songs,” she explains. “I know that they might be diverse. I have a rumba, and I have chachachá, but I also have soul and jazz. So it’s difficult for people to place me somewhere.”
Her creative process is personal and sacred. “The piano has been in my bedroom since I got my first piano. It’s also an intimate process for me. It’s not something that I used to showcase or feel actually comfortable showing to people.”
But with “Daymé y Yo,” she finally invited the world into that space. “That process of writing a song inside of a room, healing something… that’s the way I heal. I never showed that to the people before.”
3 For Daymé Arocena, Black Music Month isn’t tied to a single date or moment. “How do I celebrate African-descended music and Blackness? I do that every day. My existence is a celebration.” She reflects on the global impact of African sounds: “I believe the biggest gift that Africa has given to the world is music. 80% of the music we consume comes from Africa and has an African base.”
For Daymé, Blackness goes beyond appearance; it’s in rhythm and everyday life. “Blackness is cultural, blackness is musical. Blackness is in the food you eat. Blackness is in the way you dance. Blackness is in the music you listen to. Blackness is in the way you mash garlic to make a sofrito.”
She also speaks to the erasure of Black creators within Latin music genres: “We have reggaeton without Black people, and we have salsa without Black people, and we have bachata without Black people, and merengue without Black people.
We brought the music, but not our names, into the stadium.”
4 With a new project already underway, Daymé hints that a tour may be forthcoming. “We are actually going to Colombia and we might go to Mexico,” and teases that there may be something for the United States too.
