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Cuban Rappers Want Their
Own Revolution
Marc Lacey -- The New York
Times Media Group. Hispanic
Business, December 20, 2006.
In a country like Cuba, where the state
has its hand in just about everything, it
is perhaps not surprising that there is
a governmental body that concerns itself
with rap music.
Alarmed by the number of young people in
baggy clothing and ill-aligned baseball
caps rapping around the island, the government
created the Cuban Rap Agency four years
ago to bring rebellious rhymers into the
fold.
Chosen to head the agency was Susana Garcia
Amaros, 46, who studied Latin American literature
at the University of Havana, specializing
in the writings of Afro-Cubans. She acknowledged
that she was no rap expert when the Ministry
of Culture approached her for the job. But
she said she appreciates the music and its
underlying messages.
"Rap is a form of battle," she
said. "It's a way of protesting for
a section of the population. It has force.
It's not just the beat - the boom, boom,
boom - it's the lyrics."
The rap agency began co-sponsoring the
hip-hop festival that has drawn rap aficionados
from all over the island, as well as overseas,
to Havana since 1994. The agency also began
promoting rappers and occasionally helping
them to produce albums, although only those
artists whose rap does not veer too much
from the party line qualify.
"We don't have songs on a record that
speak badly of the revolution," she
said. "That doesn't make sense."
Not surprisingly, most rappers are averse
to joining forces with the government, even
as they struggle on their own to spread
their rhymes.
Only nine groups are part of Cuba's rap
agency. Of the remaining 500 or more across
the island, some push the envelope, voicing
discontent with Cuban society in language
that is as blunt as the accompanying beat
is loud.
"We are not in agreement with any
political system, the one here or the one
you have," meaning the United States,
said Aldo Rodriguez Baquero, 23, who teams
up with his friend, Bian Rodriguez Gala,
in Los Aldeanos, one of the island's popular
rap groups. "We want liberty and freedom."
While rap appeals to just a subset of Cuban
youth, many of the five million Cubans under
30 find themselves questioning the system.
Government surveys have found that the bulk
of the unemployed people in Cuba are young
people and that many are uncertain about
their futures. The blame, the government
argues, lies with the U.S. trade embargo.
Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque noted
the disenchantment of many of Cuba's young
people in a speech last year that was reported
by The Miami Herld.
"We have a challenge," said Perez
Roque, who is in his early 40s and considered
a member of the new generation of Cuban
leaders. "These young people have more
information and more consumer expectations
than those at the start of the revolution."
He added that young people were more likely
to hear their elders telling stories about
social progress under the current regime
and respond, "Oh, please, don't come
to me with that same old speech."
The situation among Afro-Cubans is especially
acute. They make up roughly 60 percent of
the population but are considerably poorer
than their white counterparts, according
to studies. Among the reasons is that white
Cubans are more likely to have relatives
sending remittances from the United States.
On top of that, whites hold the bulk of
the jobs in the profitable tourism sector.
Afro-Cubans complain that their housing
is inferior to that of many whites. They
say police officers are more likely to hassle
them on the streets. Speaking of these and
other problems, often bluntly, are Cuba's
rappers.
"What we sing, people can't say,"
said Rodriguez Baquero, who wore a bandanna
to pull back his braided hair as he rapped
on the sidewalk. "They think we are
crazy. We say what they only whisper."
Rodriguez Baquero said his mother and his
rap partner's mother worried about their
outspoken ways. "They don't want to
lose us," he said.
But they keep rapping, even though some
of Havana's club owners have banned them
for a time when some of their songs, like
one dealing with police harassment, proved
too controversial.
As for the rap agency, Rodriguez Baquero
dismissed it with a wave of his hand. "We
don't want to be in any agency," he
said. "It's the same as slavery for
us."
Still, not many people hear what he and
other independent rappers have to say. They
produce albums in their homes in bare-bone
studios and then distribute them by hand.
"It's very difficult to do rap in Cuba,"
he acknowledged.
One of those who has been working behind
the scenes to aid Cuba's rappers is Cheri
Dalton, who goes by the name Nehanda Abiodun.
She is a former member of the Black Liberation
Party and is wanted by the FBI in connection
with a string of robberies, including a
1981 heist of an armored car near Nyack,
New York. Now living in exile in Havana,
she has formed a chapter of Black August,
a group that promotes hip-hop culture.
"There's always been a love for music
from the States in Cuba," said Abiodun.
"You can go back to Nat King Cole,
Earth Wind and Fire, and Aretha Franklin."
Rap, first heard in eastern Cuba in the
1980s by those who picked up Florida radio
stations, is no exception. "They point
out contradictions in society that were
taboo to talk about," Abiodun said
of Cuba's hip-hop generation. But rap appears
to be losing some ground here. The hip-hop
festival, held every August, was a flop
last year. The culprit, say rappers, was
not government censors so much as another
musical genre that is pushing rap aside.
Reggaeton, a blend of reggae, rap and Latin
music that was born in Puerto Rico, is now
the rage.
The governmental rap agency has begun promoting
reggaeton artists, whose messages are often
designed more to get people on the dance
floor than to protest the problems in life.
It is harder than ever for rappers to find
a stage.
"Reggaeton is about sex and girls
and that's it," grumbled Mario Gutierrez,
19, who criticizes fellow rappers who have
speeded up their beat and gone reggaeton.
"We are singing for change. We want
freedom. We want a better Cuba than this
one."
Source: (C) 2006 International Herald Tribune.
via ProQuest Information and Learning Company;
All Rights Reserved
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