Gloria Estefan (born Gloria María Fajardo García; September 1, 1957) is a Grammy Award-winning Cuban-American singer and songwriter. She is in the top 100 best selling music artists with over 90 million albums sold worldwide, 26.5 million of those in the United States alone. She has won seven Grammy Awards, placing her among the most successful crossover performers in Latin music to date.

Gloria María Milagrosa Fajardo was born September 1, 1957 in Havana, Cuba, to Jose and Gloria Fajardo. Her mother's father Leonardo Garcia emigrated to Cuba from Pola de Siero, Asturias, Spain where he married a woman from Logroño, Spain. The family fled to Lafayette, Indiana, during the Cuban Revolution. A few years after they moved, Jose joined the US military during the Vietnam War. Her father had been a Cuban soldier and bodyguard of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista.

In the mid-1980s, Gloria Estefan was part of the group Miami Sound Machine. In 1984, Miami Sound Machine released their first Epic/Columbia album, Eyes Of Innocence, which contained the dance hit "Dr. Beat" as well as the ballad "I Need Your Love". Their more successful follow-up album Primitive Love was released in 1985 launching three Top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100: "Conga" (U.S. #10), "Words Get In The Way” (U.S. #5), and "Bad Boy" (U.S. #8) became follow up hits in the U.S. and around the world. "Words Get In The Way" reached #1 on the US Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks chart, establishing that the group could perform pop ballads as successfully as dance tunes. The song "Hot Summer Nights" was also release that year and was part of the blockbuster movie Top Gun.