2025 marks Gloria Estefan‘s 50th year in the music business and the 40th anniversary of “Conga,” her breakthrough hit with Miami Sound Machine. But she’s not slowing down: She has a new album, Raíces; an upcoming movie, Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie; and a stage musical set to open next year. “It just converged all in this 50th year — it wasn’t planned this way,” she tells ABC Audio.
In fact, Gloria says she’s loving her life these days.”There’s just a kind of peace that comes with this decade and the fact that my kids are grown; I can enjoy my grandson,” she says. “And even though I’m busy as all hell, I’m only doing things that I really wanna do and when I wanna do them.”
Gloria performed “Conga” Friday on ABC’s Good Morning America; she told ABC Audio the idea for the song came when she and Miami Sound Machine were performing in the Netherlands.
“We ran out of material in English, so … we played this medley of old Cuban congas that we used to do at the end of our gigs — weddings, bar mitzvahs, quinceañeras — and they went crazy for them,” she recalls. “I tell my drummer, ‘Hey, we need to write an original song that talks about what this rhythm is.'”
According to Gloria, “Conga” became the first song to be a hit on four different Billboard charts: Latin, pop, dance and R&B. “It’s part of my essence now for sure,” she says. “That’s probably the most recognizable song worldwide.”
Back then Latin music hasn’t considered pop music like it is today, but Gloria’s hits were instrumental in making it mainstream. Her 1987 hit “Rhythm is Gonna Get You” is now in the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry for being “a song that changed the cultural fabric of the nation.”
“I never had in my brain that wall, thinking, ‘Oh no this can’t happen,'” she says. “If the door closes, you find a window, like they say. And we found a lot of windows.”
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