Ceshia Ubau releases “Brindis,” on International Migrants Day

Nicaraguan singer-songwriter Ceshia Ubau released this December 18, International Migrants Day, her song “Brindis,” which she describes as “a waltz to celebrate life.”

• Also read: “I long for the day when we are reunited”: The painful burden of families separated by migration

“Brindis” is the third single off the second studio album entitled “Luz” (Light), a musical production in which she addresses her internal processes and grief as a migrant woman in Costa Rica. “The songs on this album are very marked by the experience of migrating and the guilt of being well while your country collapses,” explains the artist.

For Ubau, composing “Brindis” was an opportunity to free herself from that guilt and anguish she was feeling for being far away from Nicaragua. “The intention of the song is to express that being well and being alive is the best, and we should not feel guilty about that.”

Inside a little bag

A piece of my skin goes

That I ripped off my wrist

Today I come to give it back

I came to celebrate

That I am still alive

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To sing to my land

Ubau, Ceshia (2021). Brindis (Song). Luz.

“The phrase of the little bag and the piece of my skin is a very strong poetic image, which represents the renunciation of sadness and melancholy,” she continues.

To celebrate life in this song is also a recognition of her parents since it explains that accepting her life and living it, in a genuine and responsible way, is a way of honoring her parents’ effort to take care of her.

Last July she released “El Recolector” (The harvester), a tribute to the people who work the land, and in September she officially launched “Humanidad” (Humanity), a song that represents “a letter without an addressee, for those who want to share emotionally with me,” she says. Both songs are part of “Luz,” a nine-song record produced in Costa Rica.

Photo: Courtesy of Bernabé Jirón | Confidencial

“There is no light without darkness”

With this new album, Ceshia seeks to surprise her fans. Unlike “Con los Ojos de mi Alma” (With my Soul’s Eyes), her album debut in 2015, in which she reflects on problems in Nicaraguan society, “Luz” is a work that springs from a personal healing process of several years. “It was a very difficult inner journey. It is sharing with the world a side of me that they did not know,” she says.

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Ubau is one of the most outstanding and talented young female voices in Nicaragua and Central America. On May 3, the song “Mayahuaba,” composed and interpreted by Ceshia, was awarded third place in the “Music of the World” category, in the 20th edition of the International Songwriting Competition.”

This article was originally published in Spanish in Revista Niú and translated by Havana Times