She then went on hiatus before making a comeback in the 1980s with a series of albums entitled Aché, in collaboration with artists such as Frank Emilio Flynn and rumba ensemble Yoruba Andabo.

[1][2][nb 1] Her father was Ángel Valdés, known as Angelito "El Dichoso" (The Lucky One), a musician in Ignacio Piñeiro's influential rumba ensemble Los Roncos.

[5] Unlike her mother, her father did not want his daughter to become a musician, so Merceditas started her career as a nun in the black congregation Hermanas Oblatas de la Providencia.

[1] However, she soon began to stand out as a singer, winning several prizes awarded by the radio show Corte Suprema del Arte, where she sang songs such as "Babalú" by Margarita Lecuona.

[3][6] In 1944, she met musicologist Fernando Ortiz, one of the main exponents of the Afrocubanismo movement, who employed Valdés in his lectures about Afro-Cuban culture to exemplify the African heritage (especially Yoruba) of Cuban music.

[3] During the early 1950s, Valdés recorded more Santería tunes with the so-called Coro Yoruba y Tambores Batá, an ensemble directed by batá drummer Jesús Pérez and featuring other drummers such as Virgilio Ramírez, Trinidad Torregrosa and Carlos Aldama, as well as other singers: Celia Cruz, Caridad Suárez and Eugenio de la Rosa.

[11] In 1959, she recorded her debut album, which comprised one side of secular Afro-Cuban music, recorded in collaboration with Los Bucaneros under the direction of Rafael Somavilla and Adolfo Guzmán, and one side of religious Santería music featuring Jesús Pérez and his group, Isupo Irawo (a new incarnation of the Coro Yoruba y Tambores Batá).

[6] In 1989, she sang in Cubanísimo, an album of classic Cuban recordings presented as medleys under the direction of Andrés Alén and Ramón Huerta, and featuring Guillermo Barreto and Jacqueline Castellanos among others.

[14][15] Her last album, Ache V, which had only been available in cassette format,[16] was re-released in 1998 by Ralph Mercado under the title Merceditas Valdés with her Big Band - The Final Recordings.