La Negra Tiene Tumbao: What Celia Taught Me About Power, Presence, and Sweetness
Honoring the woman who turned exile into rhythm, and made joy a revolutionary act
There are some women who don’t just enter a room — they shift it.
They don’t ask for permission.
They don’t wait for the right moment.
They become the rhythm that makes the moment.
Today, I’m honoring Celia Cruz — the Queen of Salsa, the High Priestess of Tumbao, the woman whose voice could part clouds and make your bones remember joy.
And if you’ve ever wondered why her music feels like more than music — why it moves something ancestral in the hips, in the heart, in the breath — here’s why I believe she still lives in us.
Why I Feel So Connected to Her
Celia didn’t just sing — she declared. She declared joy in the face of exile. She declared sweetness (¡Azúcar!) in the midst of loss. She declared her right to be fully expressed, fully adorned, and fully alive — even when the world tried to silence or shrink her.
And when I listen to her, I don’t just hear music.
I hear a mirror.
I hear the woman in me who also refuses to be silenced.
I hear the leader in me who knows that joy can be strategy.
I hear the voice in me that says: “If I’m going to survive this, I’m going to do it in full color.”
Celia reminds me that diaspora doesn’t mean disconnection — it means remix. It means I can be rooted and reimagined. It means my leadership, too, can carry rhythm and defiance and sweetness at the same time.
Legacy Lessons from Her Life
These are just a few of the vibrations I feel in her story — and maybe you’ll recognize them in your own, too:
Power doesn’t have to be loud to be electric — but sometimes, it should be.
Style is spiritual — it’s how we decorate our resistance.
Tumbao is more than a beat — it’s a walk, a knowing, a sacred sway.
Exile doesn’t mean erasure — it can birth a global voice.
Joy is not an accessory — it’s a revolutionary offering.
Celia reminds me that you don’t need to choose between grief and glitter, sorrow and salsa, reverence and rhythm. You can live as a full, overflowing, nourished woman.
Reflection for The Nourished Leader:
Take a moment to pause and tune into your own tumbao:
Where in my life am I shrinking my rhythm to fit into someone else’s beat?
What does joy-as-resistance look like for me right now?
How do I declare myself — in color, in sound, in movement?
What flavor — what azúcar — am I meant to offer this season?
Who are the women whose music lives inside me? What have they taught me about leadership, freedom, or self-expression?
If I were to walk into the room with my full tumbao, what would shift? What would rise? What would I no longer tolerate?
La Negra Tiene Tumbao — and so do you.
Now go lead like it.