Willie Colón: 1950—: Salsa Performer, Producer, Composer, Activist

A legendary figure throughout the Spanish-speaking Western Hemisphere, Colón continued to make music in the 1990s and 2000s. When he performed in large outdoor settings, as he did at an Easter concert at Mexico City's central Zócalo in 2000, he often drew crowds of 100,000 or more. But Colón's interests increasingly turned to community activism and politics during the 1990s. "Sometimes writing a song is not enough," the singer told the New York Times, explaining his decision to challenge Bronx U.S. Representative Eliot Engel in the 1994 New York Democratic primary election.

Colón lost, but garnered a respectable 38 percent of the vote, and he also did well in a citywide race for New York Public Advocate in 2001, although it was an unsuccessful bid. Colón continued to turn his energies to the public good in various ways. He served on the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities under President Bill Clinton, became a spokesperson for the CARE International relief agency, joined the agitation against the U.S. Navy bombing range on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques, and was instrumental in persuading New York Governor George Pataki to lend his support to the ultimately successful effort to halt the bombings. In 2001 Colón composed and produced a Spanish-language jingle for the successful mayoral campaign of Republican candidate Michael Bloom-berg. As he gained contacts and experience, it seemed possible that Colón might one day exert political influence to match the tremendous impact he had already made on the musical lives of Latin Americans, as well as on everyone else whose attention was ever snared by the musical flavor of salsa.