Art and Identity
Remembering It Is to Live It Again
Yoandri J . Kindelán Sierra ( MC Nene 9 mmm ) Hip Hop Musician : La Alianza ( The Alliance ) Havana , Cuba
I dare say that October 29th , 2007 , was a legitimate lesson that induced a discouraging force in me . In turn , that discouragement gave me more strength to exclude both the love and respect for the revolution from my songs . They are not and would never be in me . From that day on , I was another person . It wasn ’ t even because of the physical pain caused by specialized troops , men with black berets known as black wasps . One of them stuck its sting until the blood flowed in the streets of Aldabó neighborhood . Such a pain could be ignored , because wounds heal . However , there is no healing for the fear , interspersed with the hatred , while seeing the attrition of my mother Regla . What did they make to us , mother ? They not only condemned your children , they also condemned you and I will never forgive it . The last in the line paid , and in what a way . How is it possible that the alleged victims of that night defended us more than our own lawyer ? Now I know he was never willing to win the case . Just minutes before the trial began , he told us with firm conviction : " This has not begun yet , and you are already sentenced ." It couldn ’ t be more clear . That dawn in 2007 , 7 or 8 passengers in a route 114 bus were , without knowing it , in the right place to witness the facts .
But no witnesses went to trial ; none of them opened their mouth , even after having told my family they were going to testify about what happened . What happened ? What supernatural force prevented them telling what they saw ? The editors of the Havanan newspaper Tribuna did their work again , this time with our photos and the story told by a police officer , Alexis Bandera , who was far from fulfilling his duty and showed that he was seeking promotion with his actions . That night , he had the opportunity to score a good point . He shamelessly lied in court about a physical assault by me against him . Then , he recanted . What can you expect from a police officer who lied in the courtroom and , seeing himself in contradiction to the facts , decides to catch an air before carrying on with the game knowing that he has an unsurmountable advantage ? Let ' s see how I can explain it . We were leaving a girl ’ s fifteenth birthday party , held in the house of the cousin of one of our six friends in Martí neighborhood . We just wanted to have fun and it wasn ’ t something new for us . While one of us made Beat Box ( guttural sound that imitates a musical background ), the others were ready to rap one at a time . We used to do it during our gatherings to freshen up after
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