Identidades in English No 4, December 2014 | Page 72

music were being played. At the state sponsored
events the music played was from Cuban artists.
In contrast, the majority of the music played at
“La Moña” came from the United States.
At “La Moña” with American Music
The music played at “La Moña” was some of the
latest from the United States at the time. A few
people were break dancing or generally trying to
do the latest dances they had seen on MTV or
U.S. television, or later on, on YouTube. Males at
the club outnumbered females by about three or
four to one. There were a few clusters of female
groups. Many of the guys had come in groups of
five to six males; only sometimes with a female
among them. A few couples were dancing
closely, and I was amused to see people rub-adubbing to Kirk Franklin’s “Stomp.” The dancers
did not realize it was a song about praising God.
With the exception of this particular tune, most of
the mu sic at “La Moña” was pretty mainstream
American hip-hop with some R&B thrown in. No
experimental or alternative rap music was being
played.
I also saw quite a few people with Afros in a stylish cut or with their hair twisted into dreadlocks.
The latter was especially interesting, since this
was not a popular style in Cuba at the time. As
with the African Americans in the United States,
dreadlocks in the 1990s were seen as a cultural
expression of rebellion and were not considered
an acceptable style within either mainstream or
Afro Cuban culture. In fact, in Cuba, dreadlocks
were associated with American tourists - or even
being a jinetero (a Cuban hustler / prostitute).
Homegrown Rap
Most Cubans listened to American rap music despite the language barrier. Just the same, a few
Cuban rap groups were emerging at this time,
such as Obsesíon, Los Orishas, and Grupo Uno.
Such Cuban rap music seldom appeared on the
television or radio. In order to hear homegrown

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rap, one would have to travel east to Alamar, site
of a state-sponsored rap festival (the state
achieved some co-optation of Cuban rap by producing such festivals), or find it underground.
However, transportation problems often presented challenges in just getting to the festival.
One interesting aspect of this conversation taking
place between Cuba and the U.S. involved rap artists who sampled beats from the songs that American artists were producing, overlaying them with
Cuban lyrics, which made for an interesting “collaboration”. Though not produced for public consumption, to my knowledge, these beats were
played around with nonetheless. While American
rappers often sampled “oldies” as a means to have
a “retro” conversation with past musicians and
audiences, artists in Cuba were not sampling
older musical genres; instead, they drew upon
new music from the United States. Indeed a new
kind of dialogue seemed to be taking shape.
Black consciousness seems to have been a part of
the birth of the Cuban rap movement; and the Cuban artists themselves also seemed to be acutely
conscious of their negritude (regardless of their
actual skin color). Even the state-sponsored and approved rappers had at least one or two songs
explicitly referencing race or skin color and
which generally bespoke of the experiences of being black in Havana. Many times this consciousness was given a special local meaning which
included the use of slang and terms that arose
from the Afro Cuban masses. The exploration of
negritude and a vibrant black consciousness which many have claimed did not exist - came
from and was expressed specifically by the underground rappers.
Indeed, what these two types of venues—“La
Moña” and music festivals—did share in common was an audience that was primarily Afro Cuban. That is not to say that light-skinned or white
Cubans were not in attendance (there were a few),
these had a much darker skin tone. In addition,
most Cubans tended to associate without regards