 Its origins lie in a comparsa number of 1868, and in its new guise became one of the signature numbers for the vedette Rita Montaner.In 1930 he set a number of Nicolas Guillén's poems "Motivos del son" to music.Grenet left Cuba in 1932 after falling foul of some of Gerardo Machado's henchmen, for the lyric of his "Lamento cubano", which had the line