"Tradición" ("Tradition") is a 1993 song by Cuban American singer and songwriter

Gloria Estefan Gloria Estefan (; born Gloria María Milagrosa Fajardo García; born 1 September 1957) is a Cuban-American singer, actress, and businesswoman. Estefan is a seven-time Grammy Award winner, a Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, and has been ...

. It was released as the third single from her first all Spanish-language album, ''

Mi Tierra ''Mi Tierra'' (''My Homeland'') is the third studio album by Cuban-American recording artist Gloria Estefan, released on June 22, 1993, by Epic Records. Produced by husband Emilio Estefan, it is a Spanish-language album and pays homage to her Cuba ...

'' (1993). The song is heavily influenced by

African African or Africans may refer to: * Anything from or pertaining to the continent of Africa: ** People who are native to Africa, descendants of natives of Africa, or individuals who trace their ancestry to indigenous inhabitants of Africa *** Ethn ...

and

Cuban Cuban may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Cuba, a country in the Caribbean * Cubans, people from Cuba, or of Cuban descent ** Cuban exile, a person who left Cuba for political reasons, or a descendant thereof * Cuban citizen, a perso ...

rhythms, and became the first song by Estefan to top the US ''Billboard''

Hot Dance Club Play Dance Club Songs is a chart published weekly by '' Billboard'' magazine in the United States. It is a national look over of club disc jockeys to determine the most popular songs being played in nightclubs across the country. It was launched as t ...

chart, even though it was a

Spanish language Spanish ( or , Castilian) is a Romance languages, Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from colloquial Latin spoken on the Iberian peninsula. Today, it is a world language, global language with more than 500 millio ...

song. The single was released as a

CD single A CD single (sometimes abbreviated to CDS) is a music single in the form of a compact disc. The standard in the Red Book for the term ''CD single'' is an 8 cm (3-inch) CD (or Mini CD). It now refers to any single recorded onto a CD of any si ...

and

CD maxi A maxi single or maxi-single (sometimes abbreviated to MCD or CDM) is a music single release with more than the usual two tracks of an A-side song and a B-side song. The first maxi singles Mungo Jerry's first single, "In the Summertime" was the ...

, but some promotional singles were sent to clubs, the main reason why the song went to number-one on that chart for two weeks (the last week of December 1993 and the first week of January 1994).https://web.archive.org/web/20091027122202/http://www.geocities.com/gemitierra1/mitierra-intro.html Tradición Info-Charts

Critical reception

Larry Flick Larry Flick is an American journalist, former dance music columnist, single reviewer, and Senior Talent Editor for ''Billboard'' magazine, where he worked for 14 years. Now he produces and hosts Sirius XM radio shows. Flick started in the music ...

from ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...

'' wrote, "A moment from her lovely ''

'' set has been goosed into a rousing

tribal The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide usage of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. This definition is contested, in part due to conflic ...

house A house is a single-unit residential building. It may range in complexity from a rudimentary hut to a complex structure of wood, masonry, concrete or other material, outfitted with plumbing, electrical, and heating, ventilation, and air condi ...

anthem (thanks to

Tommy Musto Tommy Musto is an American record producer from New York, who gained fame throughout the 1980s and 1990s in the dance music scene as a DJ and producer. In 1990, he collaborated with fellow New York DJ Frankie Bones as 'Musto and Bones', yielding ...

's inspired remixes), complete with brassy horns and rumbling backing chants. An irresistible call to the floor that will leave most breathless." The Daily Vault's Mark Millan picked "Tradicion" as his favourite from the album and added "which is exactly that: a traditional acoustic-style song that Estefan revels in; she would use this formula as a template for her stunning 1996 album ''

Destiny Destiny, sometimes referred to as fate (from Latin ''fatum'' "decree, prediction, destiny, fate"), is a predetermined course of events. It may be conceived as a predetermined future, whether in general or of an individual. Fate Although often ...

''."

Official versions

Original versions

# Album Version — 5:20

Remixes

# Glorious Tribal Mix - 6:22 # Musto Traditional Mix - 5:20 # Glorious Chants Dub Mix - 4:18 # Musto Suburban Dub - 7:35

Formats and track listings

Formats and track listings of major single releases of "Tradición": * US CD maxi single (49K 77192) # "Tradición" (Album Version) # "Tradición" (Glorious Tribal Mix) # "Tradición" (Musto Traditional Mix) # "If We Were Lovers/Con Los Años Que Me Quedan" (Spanglish Version) # "Mi Tierra" (Hustlers Convention Remix) # "Dr. Beat" (Up-Town Full Length Disco Remix)

Charts

References

External links

Gloria Estefan Discography Database
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tradicion 1993 singles Gloria Estefan songs Spanish-language songs 1993 songs Songs written by Emilio Estefan Songs written by Gloria Estefan