Salsa Legend Rubén Blades to Give Free Concert in Medellin – One of salsa’s biggest stars, the legendary Ruben Blades, will be performing in Medellin in May.  The free concert is part of  Medellin’s theme of no violence for the month of May.  The month of may has been dubbed “Mayo por la Vida”, which loosely translates to “May for life”.  There will be various activities and presentations in support of nonviolence all around Medellin.  Ex-drummer of the heavily influential Latin rock group Soda Stereo, Charly Alberti will be here.  Poland’s ex-president and 1983 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Lech Walesa will also be here.  Of course nothing says no to violence like a little salsa music.  The world famous Rubén Blades will be performing for free on May 25th on San Juan street.

For those of you who are not familiar with Ruben Blades he is a Panamanian salsa singer, songwriter, actor, Latin jazz musician, and activist, performing musically most often in the Afro-Cuban and Latin jazz genres.  Blades is famously known for a song named Pedro Navaja (Pedro the Knife), which was inspired by a song called Mack the Knife or by its original German name Die Moritat von Mackie Messer.

Glossary

Performing: comes from the verb to perform.  It means to give a presentation.  Similar to the verb to present.

Theme: is a noun and is synonymous with topic.

Dubbed: used as an adjective is to be honored with a title.

Loosely: is an adverb and means in a relaxed manner.

Heavily: is an adverb and is synonymous with greatly.

Ruben Blades - Medellin free concert

About the Medellin Buzz

The Medellin Buzz is for English as a Second Language students to practice and learn with.  The Medellin Buzz is written in a way that is easy to understand.  The difficult vocabulary words are in bold, these words are defined in the Glossary.