IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 3 ENGLISH | Page 79

but rather in a professional one. All this made me
go back to my neighborhood, to Alamar, to my
Garaje 19 project, to get into digital media and
promote alternative art in a much more ambitious
project, Talento Cubano, which created an Internet portal for unrepresented, itinerant artists all
throughout the island. Now, anyone can promote
him or herself through Facebook, but at that time,
there was no awareness of that.
Vega: Do you both believe that the order to
prohibit rap concerts at the garage was an extension of that stigma?
Fito: I don’t think so. The last concert involved
the Estudiante sin Semilla group, and their songs
contain social criticism and call the audience to
be active. This might scare people, so a few
neighbors told the police. And, of course, we
don’t own that garage; we don’t even have a car.
Look, I don’t think we’re going to become free of
censorship just because someone who understands it all pops up. It is a matter of negotiating
interests. Nothing stays the same; each effort we
make makes the obstacle of censorship shift a bit.
Remember, we’re talking about people who have
no sense of freedom. And Alamar has always
been stigmatized for its rock concerts, rap festivals, OMNI, etc. They consider it dangerous because it is the margin expressing itself in a unified, powerful manner.
Mirita: I don’t agree with that view because the
very same people who called the police knew us
very well and up till then we’d been able to talk
to them with no problem. But there were already
peopl H