Daymé Arocena on Leaving Cuba to Follow Her Dreams

Raised in a house with fourteen family members, Daymé Arocena reflects on how music, ancestry, and community shaped the woman she became.

n this episode of Identified, Nabil Ayers sits down with Cuban singer, songwriter, and composer Daymé Arocena for a conversation about family, ancestry, identity, music, and leaving home to pursue impossible dreams.

Daymé reflects on growing up in Havana in a house shared by fourteen family members, where singing wasn’t entertainment—it was survival. She explains how music became a daily expression of joy, resilience, and healing, long before she imagined becoming a professional musician.

The conversation explores Cuba’s conservatory system, discovering jazz, embracing her Afro-Cuban identity, and the responsibility she felt carrying her family’s hopes while pursuing a career in music. She also shares how Yoruba spirituality shaped her understanding of success, responsibility, grief, and ancestry.

From stories about her grandmother—the matriarch who inspired her artistry—to reflections on leaving Cuba, poverty, ambition, and becoming “the wildest dream” of her ancestors, this is an intimate conversation about identity, resilience, and the people who make us who we are.

Guest: Daymé Arocena
Host: Nabil Ayers
Executive Producer: Kieron Banerji
Produced by Palm Tree Island

Check out our Podcast:
➡️https://linktr.ee/identifiedpodcast

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00:00 Intro
00:35 Growing up in Havana
02:18 Living with 14 family members
03:30 Why everybody sang
05:45 Discovering music
06:24 Cuba’s conservatory system
08:36 Finding jazz
09:45 Embracing her Afro-Cuban identity
11:12 Family, pressure and responsibility
13:36 The Yoruba idea of carrying your crown
15:30 Realising she grew up poor
20:27 Becoming her ancestors’ wildest dream
20:45 Her grandmother’s legacy
23:00 Spiritual traditions and celebration
25:33 Grief, transformation and water
26:59 What family means to Daymé

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