Lázaro Ros was an Afro-Cuban singer. His music borrowed much from Africa, as he performed music of the Lucumí culture, of the Yoruba people

Yoruba people

The Yoruba people are one of the largest ethnic groups in West Africa. The majority of the Yoruba speak the Yoruba language...

 from modern-day Nigeria

Nigeria

Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...

, and of the Arará

Arará

Arará is a minority group in Cuba , Puerto Rico and elsewhere in the Caribbean who descend from Fon, Ewe, Popo, Mahi and other ethnic groups in Dahomey...

 culture of the Dahomeyan people from modern-day Benin

Benin

Benin , officially the Republic of Benin, is a country in West Africa. It borders Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east and Burkina Faso and Niger to the north. Its small southern coastline on the Bight of Benin is where a majority of the population is located...

. Ros was largely self taught, and first learned to sing by learning the chants associated with Santería

Santería

Santería is a syncretic religion of West African and Caribbean origin influenced by Roman Catholic Christianity, also known as Regla de Ocha, La Regla Lucumi, or Lukumi. Its liturgical language, a dialect of Yoruba, is also known as Lucumi....

, a religion based in the Lucumí and Arará cultures.

Life

Ros was born in the Santos Suárez district of Havana, Cuba. He began to work at the age of 11 distributing milk. At the age of 13 he began to sing at religious festivities, or fiesta de santo. His first major employment as a musician was in 1949, where he sang on Sunday afternoons for the radio station, RHC Cadena Azul. After the 1959 revolution, he received international acclaim with the Conjunto Folklórico Nacional de Cuba (or National Folkloric Ensemble of Cuba) which allowed him to travel to France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

, and the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. He also worked at the Cuban Institute of Ethnology and Folklore. He is recognized as a founder of Afro-Cuban rock due to his work with the Síntesis and their album, Ancestros (Ancestors). He also recorded with a group called Olorun

Olorun

Olòrún is the Yorùbá name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions , Who is either the sole entity in monotheism, or a single entity in polytheism...

. In the year of his death, he was awarded the Orden Félix Varela First Degree, Cuba's highest cultural honour.

Ros's orisha

Orisha

An Orisha is a spirit or deity that reflects one of the manifestations of Olodumare in the Yoruba spiritual or religious system....

 in the yoruba religion was Oggun and he was initiated as a Babalawo

Babalawo

Babalawo is a Yorùbá chieftaincy title that denotes a Priest of Ifá. Ifa is a divination system that represents the teachings of the Orisha Orunmila, the Spirit of Wisdom, who in turn serves as the oracular representative of God...

at the age of 25.