MIAMI.- Hayde Milans He no longer looks at the Malecón wall. Nor can he spend long hours staring at the waves breaking against the reef. That image, however, does not abandon her. She continues to observe that sea in her memory, listening to the sound of the breaking waves and enjoying the smell of salt that sticks to her clothes and her gaze in the afternoons. Hayde is a sea woman. There on that sunset on the Malecón she found one of her best sources of inspiration. I have seen her converse with the waves and the fall of the sunset, which is nothing other than talking to her with herself. That dialogue, as difficult as it was profitable, has led to songs that have grown with Cubans as the artist’s talent has grown.
Hayde already has other waves ahead of him. Another geography. Well seen, they are the same waves. The same geography of the spirit. For a year now she has lived in the city of Miami with her husband, the photographer Alejandro Gutirrez, and her little daughter, Haydecita.
In Miami, the singer has continued to climb the spiral of her career. She has reviewed the songs from her repertoire in different clubs, practically in front of the same audience that saw her become Hayde in the theaters of Havana or that he carried his voice into the intimacy of the homes. Hayde doesn’t say it, but I’m sure he misses the wall of it, the mist of the island, the sunset. The singer is a Cuban from head to toe. She has based her career on the traditions of our country that she learned to respect first through the lessons learned as a child with her father and then through her knowledge and research into Cuban music and culture.
Hayde has grown considerably not only as a singer and songwriter but also as an artist. I met her almost 20 years ago. She was a very young girl, almost a teenager, who went on stage with a certain aura of shyness. She was beating him while she warmed up during the concerts. She didn’t feel very comfortable in the process until the stage became an extension of her life, of her house. In that trait she especially resembles her father. Pablo could have the entire weight of the world and life on his back but in the middle of the tables he became the ruler of the universe. In a musician who could make magic at night with the power of his voice and the efficient backing of his band. And the public recognized the tireless character and strength that he gave to her songs, crossed by the inexhaustible talent of his colleague on the road and musical director for more than 30 years, the pianist Miguelito Nez.
Hayde is an extraordinary mix of all that inherited energy and his own clarity as an artist. Like her father, she also has a heartfelt commitment to herself, to what she understands Cuba should be, and to the public that follows her career from the island and applauds her successes and new collaborations.
With the fear of the artist he has established his own relationship. She has learned to keep him close as an old friend with whom she somehow has a relationship somewhere between love and hate. Nerves always do their thing. It is the commitment that one has with the need to play a good role. People who have been on stage for a long time tell me that that fear never goes away. I prefer to have that little tickle that enters your stomach because it helps you do it well. If I didn’t have it, I’d be worried, he once told me while we were sharing coffee at his house in Havana.
The evolution of the singer can be observed remarkably when one listens to her albums, which have become a considerable poetic testimony of her generation. The boardwalk, the hope of waiting, the debauchery or failure of love, the ease and the image of Cuba move in those themes that have as their center the strange fragility of life and the human condition itself.
I have witnessed the recording process of several of their albums, their premieres and everything that goes into organizing concerts on the island. I have seen her immersed in that deep feeling somewhere between anguish, anger and sadness for not being able to present her music on national tours to the entire public that has followed her on the island.
Hayde, Hayde Milans live o To happiness These are some of his productions with which he presented solid credentials in the contemporary Cuban scene. They followed Words, live wordswith songs by the legendary Marta Valds and Amor y Deluxe Love, with songs by his father recorded with renowned international artists. The result has been quite noticeable. The musical invoice, the rapport between the artists and the careful elaboration of each song have been impeccable. They are not really rare attributes because the singer is very meticulous when it comes to definitively releasing an album. She goes over each topic with an almost religious dedication until the topic itself speaks in her ear and tells her everything that she had stored in her head.
The singer herself explained it to me on one occasion: This is the path I have chosen. I don’t find myself making music that doesn’t convince me or having a different projection than the one I have. An artist must be consistent with himself, not with the record labels, even before pleasing the public I have to feel good about myself. This path is safer, although it does not lead you to sell millions of copies, it does allow you to have a loyal audience that follows you, and that is very important.
In the living room of his house in Havana, Hayde has a small audio system in which he always put the songs he was working on for the consideration of his friends. He alternated them with Cuban music classics that served as anchoring and learning. His ability to find some new resource in works more than 60 or 70 years old was particularly extraordinary. Possibly another trait inherited from his father, his family and his insatiable search for the sources of music.
Hayde must have reviewed this year away from his Havana Malecón, and perhaps closer to the person he wants to be at this moment or the person he has been forced to build. The majority of emigrants in principle maintain a kind of internal mourning for the distance and an all-out battle with nostalgia. Hayde, rest assured, has not had it very easy due to her deeply rooted spiritual condition. I don’t think he will proclaim it from the rooftops, but I know that this fierce silent exchange could be a way for the public to discover a new Hayde at some point. To a singer who learned to live with life in a suitcase and who has been nourished by the experience. She will not be better or worse, just an artist who has also grown up with pain like so many Cubans who have been forced to live in the distance.
2023 has been an extremely difficult year for the interpreter. In November 2022, he lost his father in Madrid at the age of 79 after a shirtless fight against cancer that he managed to defeat precisely every time he went on stage until the day came when his strength was no longer enough. She was also experiencing the drama of her husband’s journey until she reached the border and finally entered the United States. In Florida she has already offered several concerts to full houses and shared with Cuban music leaders such as Willy Chirino, Leoni Torres and Kelvis Ochoa.
The singer has a string of projects for this year. In Miami the public will continue to be an exceptional witness to the expansion of her career and may have to fulfill the demands of other international stages and recording projects.
In the midst of all this creative turmoil, Hayde will be able to continue seeking inspiration for her new songs in sunset walks, in family photos and in her sit-ins on the wall of the Malecón, although the waves against the reefs now only break in her memory.
