“Veinte Años”, one of the most recorded songs in Cuban music, was originally written in 1935 by María Teresa Vera with lyrics by Guillermina Aramburu. Mel Semé, a Cuban drummer, percussionist and composer born in Camagüey to Haitian parents, records his own version as “20AÑOS”.

Vera’s original is a habanera from the trova tradition: a slow Cuban song form with a distinctive dotted rhythm that emerged in 19th-century Havana and later influenced tango and European classical music. The song is about love lost to time: “Si las cosas que uno quiere / se pudieran alcanzar / tú me quisieras lo mismo / que veinte años atrás” (If the things one wished for were possible, you would still love me the same as twenty years ago). Vera first performed it in 1935; Omara Portuondo later made it widely known.

Semé’s route to “20AÑOS” starts in his local Baptist church, where he played alongside his brothers in a band performing Latin gospel influenced by missionaries from the southern United States. He studied at the University of the Arts in Havana, graduating in 2001, played with the Havana Symphony Orchestra and the Camagüey Symphony Orchestra, then moved to Europe. After teaching percussion in Liechtenstein and Switzerland and touring across Germany, Austria, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden and Denmark with musicians including Jane Bunnett and David Virelles. He settled in Barcelona in 2003.

He has since shared stages with Youssou N’Dour, Stewart Copeland, Giovanni Hidalgo, and Fito Páez. He currently tours with his group Gone Gone Beyond, plays drums in the Bardia Charaf Quartet and performs on Broadway in Buena Vista Social Club: The Musical. A solo album from Semé is forthcoming.

Stream and listen to the single HERE