When something happens to people, something traumatic happens in your life, you go one of two ways. You either get all down, or you go, ‘I’m going to do what I want to do’.

—Soraya

This Colombian-American singer-songwriter has the gift of song and fight. Blending all the styles that she grew up with, from cumbia and rock to flamenco and R&B, she’s part of a new generation of Latina musicians pushing the genre forward. With a Latin Grammy for Best Songwriting in hand, Soraya’s career, spanning four albums, is bathing in recognition. But she’s also a hero of sorts, spearheading a campaign to raise awareness of breast cancer in Latin women, a disease she survived. Gifted, Latin and beautiful, Soraya is every bit the star who earned her success. With a career spanning almost 10 years and five albums, she’s known not only as a prolific musician, but as an engineer of social change as well. Soraya is the sole American citizen in a Colombian family of four. Her father moved to New Jersey in 1970, and soon brought his wife and son with him. Soraya was born a year later, but the family had to return to South America. Her musical talent was evident early on. At age 5, she was teaching herself the guitar, moved by the folk tunes of Colombia and Lebanon, where her mother’s family was from. At age 8, her family moved back to New Jersey for good. At that time, she was already proficient in classical violin, an instrument she would play to a Carnegie Hall audience years later. Despite living in the US, Soraya stuck with her Latin roots, learning and absorbing its sound into her own creations. She would play her music to captive audiences at the coffee houses of Rutgers University, where she studied English literature, French philosophy and women’s studies.

Word of her sound reached far beyond the Rutgers campus and, in early 1996, she got a record contract with Polygram Latino/Island Records. On Nights Like This, her debut release, was showered in accolades and put her on tours to open for Natalie Merchant, Zucchero, Sting and Alanis Morissette. Four songs hit the top of the charts just about everywhere in the Latin American and US Spanish markets, and her single “Suddenly / De Repente” dominated the Billboard Latin Pop listings. But it was her second album, Wall of Smiles, co-written with her idol Carole King and released in late 1996, that helped her gain worldwide recognition. As far as Germany and Australia, her CDs flew off the shelves. She wrote the soundtrack of an international TV series, and was set to record her third album, but took time off to draw inspiration. In 2000, Soraya released the widely acclaimed Cuerpo Y Alma. But just before she embarked on a world tour, tragedy struck. At 31, Soraya was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer, the disease that killed her mother, grandmother and aunt. After two years, she won the battle but became the Latin spokesperson for the Susan G Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. She then decided to simultaneously return to music, releasing her fourth and self-titled album in 2003, which blended Latin, R&B, folk, pop, and country. For her work, she won the 2004 Latin Grammy for Best Songwriting. Soraya released her latest opus in March 2005, entitled El Otro Lado de Mi. Her most hard-rocking project yet, it’s an expression of struggle and hope rolled into one.

—Compiled by Sucheta Dasgupta