Pedro Navaja

"Pedro Navaja"
Song by Willie Colón & Rubén Blades from the album Siembra
Released	1978
Genre	Salsa
Length	7:22
Label	Fania Records
Writer(s)	Rubén Blades
Language	Spanish
Producer(s)	Willie Colón

Pedro Navaja (English: Pedro Knife) is a salsa song written and performed by Rubén Blades from the 1978 collaboration with Willie Colón, Siembra, about a criminal of the same name. "Navaja" means knife or razor (hence an analogy to Blades' surname) in Spanish. Inspired by the song Mack the Knife, it tells the story of a panderer's life and his presumed death. The song is recognized throughout Hispanic America as it pictures scenes and stories common to these countries, even though the story takes place in New York City. The song deals with life, death and the unexpected with dark humor.

There is also a movie titled Pedro Navaja, filmed in Mexico in 1984, starring Andrés García as the title character, Maribel Guardia as his girlfriend, and Resortes as his best friend, which is based on this song; it was made without Blades's input, which caused him to record "Sorpresas" (Surprises), a song that continues the story, turning the movie's plot around by revealing Navaja was still alive and had killed another panderer while he was being registered, provided that the other panderer believed he was truly dead. There was also a musical, La verdadera historia de Pedro Navaja, based on the Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht's play The Threepenny Opera, staged in Lima, Peru, starring, among others, Camila Mac Lennan, and in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where Luis Vigoreaux played the title character. The 1984 Mexican film had a 1986 sequel, El Hijo de Pedro Navaja (Pedro Navaja's Son), which starred Guillermo Capetillo.

...
Wikipedia