{"id":7410,"date":"2013-04-08T12:46:41","date_gmt":"2013-04-08T17:46:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/seecolombia.travel\/blog\/?p=7410"},"modified":"2016-05-04T17:50:28","modified_gmt":"2016-05-04T22:50:28","slug":"changing-the-game-salsa-legend-joe-arroyo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seecolombia.travel\/blog\/2013\/04\/changing-the-game-salsa-legend-joe-arroyo\/","title":{"rendered":"Changing the Game. Salsa Legend, Joe Arroyo."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If you&#8217;re speaking in sporting circles, very rarely &#8211; probably once in the history of a particular sport &#8211; an athlete comes along that forces the rules of a game to be changed. In my two favourite sports; there was basketball&#8217;s Wilt Chamberlain, and cricket&#8217;s Donald Bradman. If you&#8217;re talking about another kind of sport, namely Latin American music, one name springs to mind.<\/p>\n<p>Joe Arroyo.<\/p>\n<p>This man was a true game changer. The rules of music were changed forever because of the existence of this ebullient, hard-living kid from Cartagena. After carnival-crazy Barranquilla adopted him as their favourite son by lauding him with the &#8220;Golden Conga&#8221; eight times, it was realised that a new award would have to be created just to give other artists a chance of winning something at carnival time. Thus, the &#8220;<em>Super <\/em>Golden Conga&#8221; was created. Why was he such a big deal?<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/j8ElCh65bzk?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>This Cartagena kid had his work cut out for him. Growing up as one of 39 full-and-half-siblings, singing on chicken buses for a living, it has passed into legend that a bishop ran into him (somehow!) at the tender age of eight, performing in a brothel, and convinced him to joing the cathedral&#8217;s choir instead. At 12, he was also singing for a band in a hotel. At 15, lead singer of his own band. At 17, singing with &#8220;Fruko and his Hardmen,&#8221; the biggest Colombian band of Salsa&#8217;s seventies resurgence. A decade later would see him as front man for his own world-beating group, Joe Arroyo and the Truth, touring the world, and changing the game. In 2011, while a drama about his intensely-lived life was airing on national TV; and on the morning where he was awarded the Latin Grammy&#8217;s Lifetime Achievement Award; he would be pronounced dead of massive organ failure in his beloved Barranquilla, where he would indeed stay forever &#8211; just like a song.<\/p>\n<p>Although an early death was on the cards for this superstar &#8211; he spent decades struggling with drug addictions &#8211; it must have been hard to really believe. Barranquilla radio stations had declared him dead after a long stay in hospital in 1983, and he&#8217;d pulled through that somehow. It really did seem that a higher power was protecting the life of this troubled, devout singer. This made the blow a heavy one for his legions of fans to bear. Barranquilla was swamped with mourners. His birth-town of Cartegena was shut down for two days. The president himself mourned his loss; as did musical luminaries such as Shakira and Juanes.<\/p>\n<p>http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=oWBf9hfW_4Y<\/p>\n<p>Why? Because the legacy he has left behind is truly awe-inspiring, game-changing. His music was so revolutionary &#8211; he said he always chose at least three or four different musical styles in any given song &#8211; that a new style, <em>Joes\u00f3n<\/em> was named after him. The hundreds of songs he recorded are as rich as the musical heritages he was born into. Ever a passionate rebel, his music, such as the hauntingly prophetic &#8220;En Barranquilla Me Quedo (I&#8217;ll stay in Barranquilla)&#8221; and the stirring anti-racism anthem &#8220;Rebeli\u00f3n&#8221; itself changed the way music is lived all around the world. Joe Arroyo,\u00a0 game-changer of the highest order, we here at See Colombia Travel offer you this Monday salute. Thank you.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you&#8217;re speaking in sporting circles, very rarely &#8211; probably once in the history of a particular sport &#8211; an athlete comes along that forces the rules of a game to be changed. In my two favourite sports; there was basketball&#8217;s Wilt Chamberlain, and cricket&#8217;s Donald Bradman. If you&#8217;re talking about another kind of sport, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88889,"featured_media":7412,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[111,19,3,112,66,92,392,76],"tags":[58,200,1276,345],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v18.4 (Yoast SEO v18.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Changing the Game. Salsa Legend, Joe Arroyo. - Colombia Travel Blog by See Colombia Travel<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/seecolombia.travel\/blog\/2013\/04\/changing-the-game-salsa-legend-joe-arroyo\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Changing the Game. 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