IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 5 ENGLISH | Page 106

one single church; where Communist
Party militants spent a great deal of
their time checking out neighbors’ cupboards, to make certain that no beneficiary of the Revolution had religious
objects of African origin.

everything was peachy keen in Cuba.
Above all, they showed that rappers
who were committed to truth and justice, and that their lyrics were free of
the typical distortions and manipulations that had celebrated the false legitimacy of the Cuban government for
numerous decades.

Rap groups reject banal variants of this
music, commercial rap that seeks an
easy out. They also reject the hypocrisy
and simulation that the totalitarian regime promotes. The creators in this
movement have shown profound social
sensitivity and critical vocation, and
have a large number of followers who
acclaim them without the need to hear
commercial promotion. These rappers
manage to express in their music the
feelings, concerns, frustrations and
hopes of a large number of Cuban
youth.

The official reaction was not long in
coming, not after seeing the strength,
reach, social resonance, and independence of this movement. In addition to
not promoting, disseminating and financially backing it, the government discontinued the festival, which forced the
rappers to develop their work under
even more difficult conditions.
The cultural institution that was supposed to be in charge of promoting and
facilitating the rappers’ work, the Cuban Rap Agency did very little to contribute to its development, growth, and
diffusion. They receive only a small
spot within the media and other venues
that present no political threat.

For a few years, the hip-hop festivals in
Alamar became a space for debate and
free expression. The rappers, themselves, and an enthusiastic and motivated public freely expressed their concerns, opinions, and questions. That was
the scene in which groups and soloists
began creating their solid and coherent
works, by dint of great effort and using
their own resources. They portrayed a
realist and critical view of a society
plagued by the inefficiency, insensitivity, and intolerance of a government that
long ago divorced words from deeds.

One of the most common weapons used
by the authorities for gaining and maintaining absolute control is promoting
genres that promote alienation and a
distortion of values. By the eighties,
when young singers became uncomfortably uncontrollable, what was promoted
was timba, a style of danceable pop
music characterized by a vulgar, rhetorical, machista, and unedifying aesthetic.
Once the new century started, then
reguetón was also indiscriminately
promoted; it’s content is loaded with
obscenity, marginality, machismo, and
aesthetic degradation, and was offered
as an alternative to hip-hop’s gains,

Early on, official institutions more or
less supported the movement. Yet,
when its convening power and social
rise of Cuban hip-hop became obvious
and uncontrollable, the authorities got
worried. By the early 21st century, rap
lyrics began to inundate social networks, to reveal to the world that not

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