Tabú Lyrics in English by Omara Portuondo
Tabú directly translates to "taboo" in English. It's a word that immediately sparks curiosity due to its strong cultural and social connotations.
In the context of Omara Portuondo's song, it highlights a stark contrast between the nostalgic longing for African roots and the harsh realities of racial and social divisions in the Americas. The repeated use of "Tabú, tabú, tabú" at the end emphasizes the forbidden nature of a relationship between a Black man and a white woman, making it a powerful and thought-provoking word that encapsulates the song's central theme.
This song feels like a drumbeat connecting Cuba back to Africa, and Omara leans all the way into that feeling. Right from the start, she calls on an “alma del África lejana” [soul of faraway Africa] to “llena mi pecho de candela” [fill my chest with fire]. It’s like she’s saying that Africa is not just a place in the past, but a living heat inside her body and voice. When the lyrics talk about “el pobre Congo hijo del esclavo / añora siempre las palmeras” [the poor Congo, child of the slave, always longs for the palm trees], you can feel this mix of pain and homesickness. The song imagines someone ripped from their land who still dreams of “las oscas selvas primitivas / de dioses misteriosos y de fieras” [the rough, primitive jungles of mysterious gods and wild beasts]. It’s romantic, yes, but also a little harsh and wild on purpose.
Then she starts naming the Afro-Cuban deities again and again: “Oshun, Ifá, Obatalá, Chango, Yemayá.” These are gods from Yoruba tradition, carried to the Caribbean through enslaved Africans. Dropping all those names in the middle of a song gives it the feel of a chant or a ritual, like she is calling her spiritual family into the room. And then, suddenly, there’s this sharp social line: “Y aquí si el negro mira la hembra blanca / tabú, tabú, tabú” [and here, if the Black man looks at the white woman / taboo, taboo, taboo]. She goes from memories of rivers and blue skies in Africa to the cold rules of colonial and racist society in the Americas. That contrast is the punch of the song: burning African soul on one side, strict forbidden boundaries on the other, all held together by that hypnotic repetition of “tabú” and the names of the gods.
