IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 3 ENGLISH | Page 92

day. Socialism no longer feeds its children; instead it has been devouring, and the children have
rebelled in every way possible.
The first beat
Our myth is made up of all the vetoes, censorship,
exile, ‘in-xile,’ deaths and imprisonments of Cuban culture’s actors over the last decade of the
twentieth century. The story yet to be told is what
bridges the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
In 1989, perhaps no one paid much attention to
the fact the government used censorship to block
two expositions, and a group of important, young
painters, backed up by a few musicians, radio
people and actors staged a baseball game at the
University of Havana’s stadium.
During those years, the Anglo-Saxon phenomenon of rock, which was prohibited and vetoed by
Cuba for decades, and the birth of the first, incipient urban tribes, i.e., Los Freekis (from the English free-kiss), caused a stir. The first economic
opening the government embraced in order the
keep its increasingly fragile power brought with
them opportunities and opportunism. The creation of hotel services associated with foreign capital revitalized a decrepit and suffering hospitality
industry; many artists and musicians found a way
to be heard and felt in the environment. Salsa enjoyed a new boom and timba brava made its self
felt as if it were renewed social thought.
By the mid-nineties, it was clear that painters had
gone into exile or went to live for long periods of
time in the countries of America and Europe.
Then, speaking of good Cubans, “Manteca” arrived on the scene. This theatrical piece, by the
great Alberto Pedro, awoke Cuban criticism and
made it see that contemporary theater people
were moving to the vanguard, all this at the same
time the nation was undergoing the false special
period in times of peace with which the government tricked the people. The First Festival of Rap
took place at the end of that prodigious decade.
Cuban culture and the Latin American protest
song were renewed.
Two issues were clarified during the first decade
of the twenty-first century. Revolutionaries were
determined to impose their revolution on the rest

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of the nation by force: part of the population,
those who considered themselves free men—
were determined to not allow it to happen. All the
State’s forces were channeled as repression and
censorship of any cultural manifestation that
could reflect thought, reflection and soapbox.
The government had already intervened in the
Festival of Rock, which emerged as an alternative
event organized by independent, cultural institutions free of institutional meddling, in Havana’s
Alamar neighborhood. The end finally came for
an important and emblematic public gathering
place known as the Patio de María. It was the spot
for the rock movement that was trying to make its
way with innovative, musical responses with
which the nation’s youth expressed its discontent.
Of course, the government thought that Cuban
rock should be domesticated, so it would not lose
control of it. The State feared that it might create
a space as a social phenomenon. It created the National Rock Agency and created programmed festivals all over the island. John Lennon was finally
acknowledged, but in a park in the capital city’s
darkest corner. The time came to cry out: Raise
your fists, my people! Long live Cuban rap!
The Second Beat
Cuban rap and performance popped up quite suddenly in this context of accumulated pressure that
built up in Cuban society after the fall of the Berlin Wall and future collapse of the socialism that
had been imposed on and accepted by one part of
the country’s population. As if Cuba were ill, the
sickness had extended from the State’s very core
all over the nation. Yet, the rap phenomenon
emerged in that sick body’s extremities, its marginal neighborhoods, to positively influence and
change society and music.
Rap in Cuba is an eminently black and protest
phenomenon. I say it is black because a great majority of its soloists are Afro-descendants and
multi-racial groups. I say it’s about protest because of where its performers come from; they
come from very peripheral spaces and marginal
neighborhoods in Havana and other forgotten corners of Cuba.