Season 2, Episode 2:  “I’m Ready For That Transformation” ft Dayme Arocena

NARRATION: Alright. Favorite vocalists of all time. Ah! It is so hard to name just a few. I love different vocalists for different reasons. Nina Simone’s voice is like a delivery system. The emotion and the message will go straight into your bones. The legendary Ethiopian vocalist Aster Aweke, she will make you yearn for whatever it is that you most long for. And 2 Pac, he was like a lead drummer, always right in the rhythmic pocket!

I mean that’s just a few favorites, believe me I could go on for an hour on the subject alone. But I want to talk about Dayme Arocena, Afro Cuban genius singer composer, and one of my favorite vocalists of the last decade. 

First time I heard her was a live video of her song “Crystal” maybe around 2016, I remember thinking to myself. Ok, where does her voice not go? It swelled so big that it reached the ceiling rafters, and then got so tender my body literally leaned into the computer screen where I was watching her video. 

In all her concerts, she wore white, with a headwrap like a crown. Elegant earrings, and bare feet. I myself performed barefoot for well over a decade, so I knew what was. Grounded, and free, all at the same time. A singer who is free in their voice is irresistible, gravitational, you literally cannot look away. And it invites you as a listener, into your own sense of fearlessness. Like an invitation to take up space in a room. When I heard Dayme, I was hooked. 

I enjoyed album after album, but it had been a while since she was in my rotation. Then earlier this year, Dayme released a new record called Alkem. And I immediately noticed, this woman is different now. No longer in pure white, she also wears golds and blues and hues of black. And her hair is out. Long, glorious dreads that shake when she dances. No more headwrap. And my first thought was something happened. 

I had to find out what.
My name is Meklit and this is Movement: Music and Migration, Remixed.
NARRATION: Dayme’s musical and personal journey, began with a literal journey. 

When I heard her first album Nueva Era, Dayme was still living in Havana, Cuba, the city of her birth, surrounded by her family, the sun and everything she knew. She was in love, already together with her husband, and rooted. But then, in 2018 — her world started to change. 

The Cuban government passed a law requiring artists to get permits from the government in order to perform. She questioned the law publicly, but her concerns were dismissed. She was feeling constrained, like there was a ceiling over her head. So she and her husband left.

Meklit: Can you tell us about your first day in Canada?

Dayme: Well, being totally fair, I moved to Canada in 2019, so right before the pandemic, and also the lack of weather, the cold weather on the pandemic, and being unable to perform, that was a big combination. I have to say, I felt for the first time what depression is.

NARRATION: Canada was in many ways a practical choice: great healthcare, liberal immigration policy. But she was realizing that healthcare alone did not make her happy. And the cold, certainly did not make her happy.

Meklit: There's something that I'm thinking about wintertime in general, the hibernation, you know? And when the leaves come back and the springtime comes back, it is almost like the earth reinvents itself every year, and going to a place of wintertime, you have that.

Dayme: Yeah. It's interesting because in the Caribbean, we don't have that, right? 

Meklit: No

Dayme: But honestly, I rather the green 247, 365 days of the year. It's my habitat.

Meklit: That’s right.

Dayme: I'm used to, people are like, ah, this is hot the whole year. I'm like, I don't care that that's the way, that's the place I feel home.

But, I have to say that after three years in Canada living that I believe it was, it was important for me because I got the opportunity to reinvent myself. To move on. And Canada, I, this is something interesting. I always say that if you, if you are in the middle of the sea, what is gonna save you is your hope. But if you, but you have hope if you can see land.

Meklit: That's right.

Dayme: And that hope can make you swim and swim and swim to get there.

Meklit: That's right.

Dayme: To succeed. So, I didn't see that land in Canada.

NARRATION: Dayme rode out the depths of the pandemic in Canada. A three year blur of cold, gray, quiet, unfamiliar. Then there was an opening. Eduardo Cabra invited her to Puerto Rico to record for a few days. Now It is hard to overstate what a big deal this man is, but let me tell you just a few accolades. He’s co founder of the legendary band Calle 13. He’s a 28 time Latin Grammy award winner. And he’s worked with Sharika, Jorge Drexler, Vicente Garcia, and too many more to even count. Dayme was ready. She packed light, and headed down to Puerto Rico to begin the potentially momentous collaboration. Days turned to months. Until one day Dayme called her husband back in Canada and told him: bring my stuff down. I’m not coming back. 

Dayme: And when I moved to Puerto Rico, and I saw so many artists that I love performing.

Meklit: Mm. Like who?

Dayme: For example, the first performance I saw in the island was La India.

Meklit: Mm.

Dayme: And I remember that woman, that woman is a powerhouse, like, is a powerhouse. And she, she's salsa, but she's R& B. It's like you are listening to a holy life. Like, but in a salsa style, it's crazy. La India is something incredible. 

And then I started watching other concerts. I have seen Gran Combo, or Gilberto Santa Rosa. I have seen reggaeton shows like Zion and Lennox or Weezing and Yandel. Like, I have seen people living through music, people paying bills.

Meklit: Yes.

Dayme: Playing music, so I was like, I see land. Now I see land. But it, but it's because if you are a musician in Puerto Rico, you get some respect because people love music. In Canada, I will, if you ask for a lease and you say you are a musician, people are like, what else? But if you are in Puerto Rico and you say this is my experience. I said to my landlord, I'm a singer. And she was like, let me Google you! Wow, I love your music! Yes, take the keys!

Meklit: Wow.

Dayme: And she’s my big fan. And she goes to all my performances. She follows me, everything, single thing I do. She and her family and my neighbors. Now, all my neighbors know that I am a singer when I go on TV or on the press, they are like, Dayme, we saw you!

It's like they love music. That, in the island, music is a big thing. It's not just musicians, but it's not the same everywhere. So, in a place that you are a musician, and not, you can't even get a lease, it means that's not your place, basically.

Meklit: Meanwhile, in Puerto Rico, it was literally the door, the door opening was a metaphor, but it was also a reality to your apartment, you know?

Dayme: Exactly, exactly. For sure. 

Meklit: And so from there, from falling in love with the island, like, when did you make a decision from, I'm going to record here, to, this is my place?

Dayme: From the first day.

Meklit: From the first day?

Dayme: Yes. Yes. Seeing, because I, I was cold in Canada. I was sad. And when I arrived in Puerto Rico, I was like, I arrived back home.

Meklit: Mmm,

Dayme: The first meal I had made me cry. 

Meklit: Really? What was the meal?

Dayme: It was arroz, frijoles, carne con encebollado, like bistec encebollado, fried plantains, bacalaito, and acerola juice. I'll never forget it.

Meklit: That sounds like home.

Dayme: It was home, for sure. 

NARRATION: Home in a dish made with love, home in a speaker blaring your favorite music. Home in your own body, in your own sound, in your own voice. 

Me personally, I have this philosophy. Our voices are a mirror to our lives. I can listen to a friend's voice, and know if they are tired, or doing well. I can hear a new voice on the phone, and guess the person’s age, usually fairly accurately. And same goes for me too. After I had my son, my singing voice opened up. I think it was the process of labor itself. The right of passage, three long days of it. After all those hours, and all that screaming, I built a shortcut to just being in my body. And through that, I was able to find new notes on stage, I had more clarity of tone in the studio. I somehow sounded more like myself. The point is, we change, and our voices change too. Our sound changes. This also happened for Dayme too. 

Meklit: Did the music flow for you, from being In that place?

Dayme: I, It's an interesting question. I always, I'm always open and suitable to any type of music, but in Puerto Rico, for example, I got to learn and be in peace with genres that maybe I didn't totally reject, but I didn't follow. Like reggaeton or Dembow, and I identified myself as a Black Caribbean through that music too now.

So now, I hear Dembow in the, in the streets or in the beach and I start vibing. Now I get like the, I feel my ancestors make, making me move. So that's why now I'm experimenting with new genres. If I get in contact with musicians or music, I keep my eyes, my ears, and my heart open and if that is going to transform me, I'm ready for that transformation too.

Meklit: Wow, I love that you said, if it's going to transform me, I'm ready for that transformation.

Dayme: Yes.

Meklit: Yes.

Dayme: That's, that's actually the concept of my latest album. If it is all about transformation and I'm ready for anything around me to transform me.

Meklit: Can you describe a song on your new album that did that for you?

Dayme: Mm, interesting. I'll say, Cómo vivir por él? for example. It's a song that describes a break, breakout.

Meklit: Mm hmm.

Dayme: And the process of understanding that you cannot live your life. Through other people's life, that your life just belongs to you, and you have to always question yourself if you are living through someone else's life.

NARRATION: Dayme still sings from a root that goes way down into the Yoruba traditions she was raised with, but now the music is holding more. It’s wider, more expansive, with influences from R&B, American pop, Latin pop, and more. 

Como Vivir Por El? translates to How to Live for Him?, and the strange thing about the song is that she wrote it when she was still in Canada, living with her husband as two Cuban exiles. But it’s about a separation, about a relationship ending. Now, the song feels like a premonition. 

In the second verse she sings about rebuilding after a separation, and realizing what she told me: that you have to live your life for yourself. You can’t live your whole life through other people.

Dayme: Someone said to me something that I keep hearing.

Meklit: Mm 

Dayme: Relationships are like the strawberry on the cake. Of course they make the cake more beautiful and maybe even more tasty. But the cake doesn't really need it to be a cake.

The cake is the cake. And if it has a strawberries, beautiful, but if it doesn't, it's fine. So it’s exactly the same. We have to know how to live with ourselves first, then to be able to share our life with others.

Meklit: Someone once gave me that advice too, as a, when I was a 25 year old looking for love.

Dayme: Yeah, I'm not looking for love anymore. Now, I understand now that love is not what keeps relationships together.

Meklit: What keeps relationships together?

Dayme: For me it's like, how can I say this in English, acompañamiento.

Meklit: Companionship?

Dayme: A companionship in process. In process, yes.

Meklit: Mm.

Dayme: It's like, you both are accompanying each other. In the process you are living. Sometimes we fight so hard to keep someone beside us because we love this person, but this person doesn't belong beside us.

Meklit: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. 

Dayme: Now, actually, my husband and I, I live in Puerto Rico and my husband lives in Canada. I love him my entire life, but the day our path I'm not walking down together.

Meklit: hmm.

Dayme: Love is not gonna make me tied him to me.

Meklit: Right.

Dayme: At all. I'll be happy to let him go. I hope he will be the same, because my love for him is not really gonna change. But we, but maybe we don't belong beside each other anymore. So, it's difficult because we are not trained to understand that. 

Meklit: If you think about it, there's so, so often we learn about love as women, you know, especially we learn about it from movies and television, but we also learn about it from songs. We also learn about it from songs. And so

Dayme: Oh yes.

Meklit: we need songs that give us a different kind of love, a different kind of love story.

Dayme: Exactly. This is something that I have been very careful about.

Meklit: Hmm. Right.

Dayme: Because there are so many songs saying, I can't live without you. If you leave, I'm gonna die. You are the sun and the moon for me. And nothing really matters if you. I'm going, and it's like, why? Why? It's not really romantic, honestly. If you think, like, it's not romantic to put that pressure on someone else. Honestly, I don't know why we, who sold us that idea of love, but, well, maybe church and that idea of being together forever and happy forever, I don't know. When, honestly, I'd rather say what you make me feel in this moment. How I wish you were here in moments that I need a hug.

Meklit: Mm hmm.

Dayme: That's love too. You don't have to say, if you are not here, I'm gonna die. First of all, because in 80 percent of the cases, 85, that's not true. Second, because if it is, oh my goodness, that's a disaster.

Meklit: It's literally the definition of toxic.

Dayme: Of toxic, exactly.

Nowadays, I go to the beach by myself. I grab my coffee, and I sit in the beach, and I swim. Or I go and have beautiful dinner by myself and I enjoy so much. Saying, when they ask me, how many? One. It's true. 

NARRATION: When Dayme isn’t dining for one, she surrounds herself with people who bring out the truest part of her. 

Dayme: I hang with many strong women like me. I have to say that, my friends around me, most of them are women so powerful.Like tough. I don’t know, I kind of attract that kind of female power. Many of my closest friends are lesbians and all of that. What we have in common is power. So if you are a powerful women, we are gonna be good friends. For sure.

Meklit: And also free. It sounds like you are attracted to people who are in their sense of freedom.

Dayme: Yes, yes, exactly. Exactly, for sure. That’s my people.

Meklit: Do you ever wonder what kind of music you would be making if you were still in Cuba?

Dayme: Oh, definitely, I was still focused on the music I had done in the past, like jazz and rumba. Because, I mean, that's in my DNA. 

Meklit: Mm.

Dayme: That's never gonna change. But I didn't have any goals. I didn't have fight. So, now that I am not longer in Cuba, I’m not afraid anymore of suffering or starting again, or going to a different country, because now I have already two different migrant process.

I did Canada and then I did US. And honestly, now, I'm not saying that it doesn't hurt, I'm saying like, now, I am okay with that pain, because that pain transformed me. I know that after that self suffering, something beautiful is going to come out musically and it's going to heal me and I'm going to live like a proof of my process through a song.

Meklit: That's what music can do for all of us.

Dayme: Mm hmm.

Meklit: That’s the power of music.

Dayme: Yes.

NARRATION: Dayme got in my head. I thought about what she said a lot. About love, and friendship, about separation, aloneness, and the sheer bravery of it all. I thought about her very specific, and rather enlightened, definition of love, and how for her, it meant the exact same thing as being with the people through your music. 

There was this one other bit of wisdom that I took from the 3 days I was in labor with my own son. And it was this. When the pain comes, you have to relax. Most of the time, pain makes us tense and recoil, but in labor, the pain is a call to breathe and accept the waves as they come. There was something in Dayme that was doing that, as she was birthing her new music. 

I’ve listened to her album Alkemi many times now, and I think what is different in her sound, aside from the changes in production techniques, the embrace of pop, and the megastar potential that comes with that, is how sensual the music is now. How sensual her voice is. It was always beautiful, it was always free. But now, there is an embrace of the body that just makes me wish I could find a patch of shade, on a sunny afternoon, in a tropical place, and feel comfortable enough in my skin to really, truly just rest in being myself. 

Dayme Arocena’s new album Alkemi is out now, wherever you find your music.

It’s all in the title, Alchemy, transformation. The ancient art of turning all matter into gold. 

Movement is produced by Ian Coss and myself, Meklit Hadero. Our editor is Megan Tan. Our co-creator and podcast godmother is Julie Caine. Our broadcast partner is The World. We are supported by the Mellon Foundation and distributed by PRX.