Art and Identity
Rock in Cuba: An Eternal Outlaw
Marcia Cairo Havana, Cuba
Rock band The Old School in the concert tribute to The Rolling Stones
D
ozens of articles, documentaries and anecdotes are not enough to recognize that rock music became an outlawed genre after the triumph of the revolution. The cultural policy implemented by the most bitter foe of rock and roll, Fidel Castro, tried to isolate it by all means. In a 1963- speech, Castro already spoke about adolescents with " Elvis-Presleyan " attitudes, long hair and jeans, associated to juvenile delinquency and ideological diversion. There was no discernment. Rockers, vagrants and criminals, homosexuals and the lumpen were the same kettle of fish: the dregs of humanity destroying the revolutionary process. From that moment on, rock was a social danger. The English-language music must be listened in secret. The young people kept Beatles records camouflaged under Cuban music covers, because sometimes the police
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