The music’s genius was undeniable. The politics were not.
Por AURORA FLORES HOSTOS
FEB 21, 2026
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For weeks now, low rumblings about Willie Colon’s hospitalization, followed by posts for prayers for the Salsa music legend, have spread across social media. Many journalists who knew him refrained from digging further, so as not to spark the heat of the feisty musician or his team. We all knew his Kanye-esque tendencies – his 3 a.m. covert missives over message machines.
But then the official news of Willie Colón’s passing at 75 hit hard this morning. Those of us of a certain age recall the defiance of the sixties, the street fights followed by club nights — black lights and after-hours flights of fancy — quickly fading with the morning sunlight.
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The Bad Boys of Salsa are all gone now.
Willie Colón, 1969 — creating the outlaw myth that would both elevate & shape salsa’s gangster, macho, and defiant groove, as it complicates the legend.
Separating the man from the artist, his recordings with Héctor Lavoe, Yomo Toro, Rubén Blades, Celia Cruz, Mon Rivera, and so many others set a polyrhythmic beat in time. It was around 1969 when Héctor Lavoe’s voice rang out “Che Che Cole” over every dance floor, house party, street jam, and jive joint, joyfully celebrating like the children of the original African song Colón’s band covered. Then it was El Malo, gangster style à la Joe Cuba, with The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly sealing his jíbaro bond with Yomo Toro, taking the national Boricua cuatro guitar, along with our parents’ Puertorican Christmas music, around the world. His trombone roared with confidence. The musician behind it often did not.
Willie Colón, the man, was much more complicated. His politics were not only far from the progressive movement our music was steeped in, but also confusing, as he voted for Hillary Clinton in 2008 and then for Trump in 2016. Then there was that lawsuit against Rubén Blades. Didn’t anyone advise him to never sue a lawyer? You’ll can’t win, especially with one from Harvard!
Still, Willie Colón left a legacy of musical innovations, collaborations, and, in the footsteps of Barry Rogers, Mon Rivera, and Eddie Palmieri, an upfront trombone sound that underscored the “salsa music movement” of the 1960s into the ‘80s.
I’ll be adding more to this in an expanded post as I gather my notes and memories of a time in music gone by. A time that shook the world as I watch and hear Boricuas again lift the music of Latino life, barrio realism, and diasporic pride high, as Willie once did with Hector and his brassy band of defiance; recalling sugar cane roots with Yomo, Daniel Santos, and Mon. Followed by his guarachando in an intergenerational Afro-Caribeño groove with Celia Cruz; all before he took us to higher ground, sembrando political consciousness as we marched alongside African Americans for civil rights, against a war, and for Black & Puertorican studies, housing, and rights. That legacy should not be forgotten!
Tonight, New York’s Lehman Center for the Arts & Culture memorializes Johnny Pacheco in an all-star concert celebrating the Fania label, considered the Latino Motown sound. Pacheco and Willie Colón were two of the company’s top producers, collaborating on many of Willie Colón’s and the label’s albums. I’m sure the All-Star band will also pay a preliminary tribute to Willie Colón, one of the label’s top sellers. They were “boys” in that way, where they would kid each other and rank on their own fears and insecurities. In recalling the taping of the Fania All-Stars’ 1974 milestone concert at Yankee Stadium, Pacheco details a funny story about Willie Colón. Listen to the interview here.
I leave you now with this original recording of Siembra, considered one of the label’s highest-selling and highest-rated albums. And if the portion where Rubén Blades calls out the Latin American countries sounds a wee bit familiar to what you heard during the Super Bowl, this is why. Enjoy.
May the Universe receive Willie Colón with the same thunder he gave us.
