Identidades in English No 1, February 2014 | Page 38

climate controlled air, but refreshing and renovating
just the same.
Forces within the underground Cuban hip-hop movement are divided: they are divided by a myth. This is
actually good, and better yet, if one wants to understand the phenomenon of social rap in Cuba. “El Festival” and “El Movimiento” are there for those who
are interested.
From memory, I can tell you that “El Festival”
emerged around 1994, under the direction of Rodolfo
Rensolis and GRUPO UNO. They took care not only
of artistic direction, but also of staging, design, publicity, general production, bureaucratic procedures
and countless other things it takes to pull off an event.
Additionally, they established a precedent for how to
negotiate with bureaucrats at Cuban institutions, cultural censors and the media at their disposal.
El Festival really reached its peak starting in 1996. It
created a sound wave that permeated Cuban music till
2002-2004, and reached its peak as a sociocultural
phenomenon that reached the steps of the Alamar Amphitheater (in a forgotten city erected by the New
Man). Its goal, not as a genre, but as a Festival,
brought it to the attention of those who hold Cuban
culture as if it were their personal possession, their political and indoctrinating work tool.
In 2004, a decision by those in political centers came
down from “above” to sentence “The Festival” and,
thus, attempt to break up its rapping musical movement by accusing it of being contestatory. Different
strategies were employed, some of which, are still in
existence, with all their purposeful forgetfulness. One
of these is the Cuban Rap Agency, whose history merits another, separate article.1
The movement bore the mark of censorship from its
very inception. It was born at a time of extreme valor,
in the nineties, when all Cubans carried out a revolution—a revolution to be able to eat, save the family, to
speak the truth. That truth contained the expression
and habits of a displaced generation, a generation forgotten by the mass media, although it did more to twist
that truth and its social image than to forget them.
As far as the national press is concerned, THE BARRIO—the only one that exists—is the one that’s full
of black thieves, drugs and folkloric dances. The barrio is the State’s personal hell; all things are blamed

on it. It is the end of everything. Yet, that’s a lie, as is
the extreme view that a neighborhood that loves the
five Cuban heroes (the five Cubans imprisoned in the
U.S. after being sentenced for espionage) is ready to
give its life for a socialism that is starving to death the
nation’s most treasured values, due to people’s extreme need.
Not censorship, but censored, which apparently
sounds better, classifies a movement that was unable
to achieve much recognition or social presence due to
two basic reasons: 95% of Cuban hip-hop performers
are black and 95% of the songs criticize life, society,
the cultural crisis and the world. That was singularly
different, new and absolutely intolerable for a power
elite, who, with all the media at their disposal, tried to
write a new cultural history “free and disconnected
from changes in the world.” Censorship in Cuba? History just goes on and on.
The artists in this movement know the struggle will be
long. That as individuals and a generat