Cuba’s rap revolution: Tough times inspire musical commentary
CIENFUEGOS, Cuba — Along the lapping waves of this southern coastal city, the dimly lit Casa de la Musica seems an unlikely source of revolution. The open-air club is part of a larger complex that, like so much in Cuba, seems stuck in a state of mysterious incompletion, but on this night it pulses with the energy of 600 young fans.
The steady winds of hurricane season's tail end topple half-full mojitos on plastic tabletops as TecnoCaribe's Yhosvanni Maria takes the floor in his trademark duds: a Ren & Stimpy jersey-style shirt, floppy Nike hat and beige cargo pants. Before long he's spitting rhythmic hip-hop raspberries into the mike, prompting a frenzy of leaping and pumping fists.
American rap music first touched Cuban shores in the 1980s but was little more than listened to or imitated until a decade ago. Then came the Soviet collapse. With its economy in shambles, Cuba has seen the return of social ills Fidel Castro's revolution intended to eliminate: poverty, racism, prostitution and street hustling.
In a world rife with contradictions, where capitalism is the duct tape keeping socialism afloat, rap is reclaiming its roots as an outlet for social commentary and giving discouraged youths and Afro-Cubans a voice in a place where it's often better to keep one's mouth shut.
"The things that rappers say, no one had the courage to say," says Carlos Infante, a student at the University of Cienfuegos.
That's because the troubles of the "Special Period" have had another effect: They've prompted young, musically minded people like Maria and Carlos Diaz to pick up their pens and write.
The lines are drawn so tightly here that stepping beyond them seems tame by U.S. standards. Lyrics are often cloaked in ambiguity.
"Don't push me anymore, I'm not going anywhere," goes a song by Afro-Cuban rap trio Anonimo Consejo ("Anonymous Advice"). "Don't push me anymore — let me live."
They're pushing the boundaries of Cuban repression. "In the past, it was impossible to talk about those things," Infante says. "We have more freedom now. People are starting to lose their fear."
A rich musical heritage
Cuba is one of the most musically gifted places on Earth. Rumba was born here. So was mambo. And son, made famous by the Buena Vista Social Club. But socialism has made the road to musicianship a bureaucratic one: Careers start early in music-focused middle schools and then continue, for those with the talent and drive, in secondary and pre-professional schools.
Performers who earn the backing of the state-run music industry get booking, promotion and access to recording studios and technology. Until recently, nearly all were purveyors of traditional Cuban music. Rap, a suspect import from capitalist America, existed only as a fringe movement.
Still, rap's audience grew, inspiring an annual hip-hop festival in the Havana suburb of Alamar. Most of it was imitation, with raperos singing about unfamiliar topics in an unfamiliar language.
The Soviet collapse changed all that. As social conditions deteriorated with the loss of $6 billion in subsidies, lyrics by groups such as Amenaza ("Threat") and Primera Base ("First Base") examined Cuban reality. Amenaza's "Ochavon Cruzao" ("Mixed-Up Octaroon") hit the airwaves in 1996, exploring racial identity in a country that tried to sweep long-held prejudices under the ideals of a colorless society.
"That song marked a moment of transition," says rap producer Pablo Herrera. "People said, 'We have to talk about issues that have to do with us.' "
Amenaza's work encouraged more socially minded lyricists, including Anonimo Consejo, once detained after a show by police unaccustomed to hip-hop's aggressive gestures and style. One Anonimo Consejo song, "Guapo Como Mandela" ("Tough Like Mandela"), calls for courage in the face of Cuba's daily adversity and goes a step farther by inking it in shades of racial injustice.
The International Hip-Hop Exchange Project led to appearances by U.S. rappers such as Mos Def, Common and dead prez at Alamar's annual event.
As raperos grew increasingly bold in their criticism, they carefully painted themselves as patriots working to better their country. In 1998, Cuba's minister of culture, Abel Prieto, officially sanctioned hip-hop as a legitimate form of Cuban music, opening the door to state support and resources.
'We have it in the heart'
American hip-hop culture — a palette of in-your-face music, art, dance, fashion and style — emerged from black and Latino youth on the margins of a wealthy society. In Cuba, where 70 percent of the population is either Afro-Cuban or mixed race, it's a different story: This is a generation that grew up with a Cuban perspective. Its members see their country as marginalized and support the revolution's ideals, if not its leaders.
Alexey Rodriguez, 29, is one of the faithful. Inspired by Alamar's first hip-hop festival, he joined a group called Malissimo ("Really Bad"). Looking back on it, "we were malissimo," he says, laughing. "We imitated American groups. We were wearing baggy pants and skullies in this hot weather."
Such was the learning curve for Cuban hip-hop, whose premier recording base has been a second-story apartment in Havana's dusty Santo Suarez neighborhood.
Pablo Herrera's home overlooks weed-grown lots and crumbling, colonial-style houses.
A former English-language teacher at the University of Havana, Herrera, 35, works with 13 of the city's estimated 200 rap groups (an additional 300 pepper the rest of the island). His wobbly setup, in the same large, airy room housing his bedroom, living room and kitchen, is little more than a sampler, cassette deck, minisequencer and drum machine, with power cords in jungle-vine disarray.
That's how it goes in a society whose roads are marked by fume-spewing, '50s-era classics patched together from the working parts of those lost to age. Rap, a Jamaican-influenced music driven by beats and lyrics, has proved accessible to youths lacking instrumental training.
"We're doing it without a studio, without turntables," says rapper Alexander Guerra, 29, of Havana's La Familia Cuba. "But we have it in the blood. We have it in the heart."
Aided by makeshift antennas and friendly radio airwaves, youths near the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo and along Cuba's northern coast toyed with rap in the late 1980s. Others, inspired by pirated videos, launched waves of break dancing. Without turntables, youngsters gathered on street corners and took turns rhyming over the beats of clapping hands or revolving loops taped, piece by piece, from cassettes.
It was Herrera-produced groups like Amenaza that helped carry hip-hop into maturity. Amenaza, now the France-based Orishas, and Irak Saenz, now of the rap duo Doble Filo ("Double Edge"), took early top honors at Alamar's annual event, which draws acts from throughout the U.S., Europe and South America.
A few years ago, a Dutch producer interested in compiling a Cuban rap collection approached Herrera with a batch of high-tech recording equipment. "He said, 'We'll be back in 10 days,' " Herrera recalls. It was stuff he had only seen in magazines, but he quickly put the word out. "In 10 days, I had 10 songs," he says.
Those songs comprise the bulk of "Cuban Hip-Hop All-Stars," which saw its U.S. release last fall. One song is "Nadie Sabe Quien Es Quien" ("Nobody Knows Who Is Who"), by Obsesion, the group Rodriguez formed in Malissimo's wake along with his wife, Magia Lopez.
His Afro stylishly spiky, Rodriguez is as laid-back as a three-day weekend.
"We were in a stage where everything was easy," he says. "When the Soviet Union fell, everything fell apart. No one was prepared. It was hard. I couldn't get money.
"I was complaining to my dad about how bad things were. He told me, 'Don't talk like that. You don't remember what it was like before the revolution.' That has always given me strength. When I was born, I had things he didn't."
Still, Cubans aren't blind to the problems disrupting Cuba's easygoing charm. Crippled by sputtering finances and a decades-old U.S. trade embargo, Castro launched a secondary economy built on U.S. dollars and heavier tourism. Now, people use capitalism, legally or otherwise, to get the dollars that buy basic items unavailable in poorly stocked peso stores.
Do the math: With the average Cuban peso salary about $15 U.S. a month, it's tempting for those without dollar-paying jobs to spend their time hustling for handouts instead. And those jobs — in hotels, state-run taxis or as licensed operators of restaurants and guesthouses — have proved elusive for Afro-Cubans.
Everyone's motives are suspect. Who's genuine? Who just wants money?
Little to hope for
Even in the relative quiet of Cienfuegos, discontent reigns. The city's small-town feel centers on the Plaza Marti, where occasional buses spill camera-clicking Europeans and Canadians onto a sun-bleached main square of imposing government buildings and run-down tourist spots.
Out for his morning walk is bespectacled, aging patriot Armando Martinez. He quotes century-old words from José Marti, the early 20th-century revolutionary and philosopher whose works decorate his den in tattered formation. "The disagreeable only see the sunspots," Martinez says. "The agreeable see the light."
Yes, society is suffering, but the good things outweigh the bad, he says.
But more and more, there are those like Niurka Villa, 26, who see little certainty ahead. Dark-haired and compact, she puffs through a 50-cent pack of Hollywood brand cigarettes at a patio bar just off the plaza, doubtful her university studies will lead to anything useful.
What hopes do young people have? Villa takes an angry afternoon toke. Hope, maybe, that your relatives in the U.S. will send you money, she says. Hope that you get a job in a hotel, anything that will bring dollars. Hope — her own — that a foreigner might take her out of this mess.
Night falls, and down the street, the vibe at the Benny More disco is otherworldly: People dressed to impress on a packed dance floor, no worries, pounding bass and swirling lights. This is Cuba's emerging upper class, the leisure elite, beneficiaries of tourist jobs and the children of government officials.
Outside, walking toward the square on Avenida 54, is a European couple, blond and fashionable, arm in arm on the moonlit promenade. Shops are closed for the evening. A figure, indistinguishable in the shadows, leans against a decorative planter, and then whoosh — a shriek, and the figure is off in a blur, a youngster of 15 or 16, clutching the woman's purse.
"Hey!" the man shouts, starting to pace after him, but a passing Cuban has seen this too often. "He's gone," she says in Spanish.
Fighting for respect
From these streets came rappers like Maria, who yawns as he invites several of Cuba's young voices — including Diaz of Concepto Cuba and hip-hop activist Infante — into his home.
Maria, 26, hopes his music will take him out of this place. His 5-year-old group, TecnoCaribe, is the veteran of Cienfuegos' dozen rap outfits and the only one with professional status.
Being a rapper in Cienfuegos means fighting for respect. Most cienfuegueros (Cienfuegos residents) prefer local salsa legend Benny More or traditional crooners like Pablo Milanes. There's also a credibility issue: In the same way New York rappers sneer at Houston or Oakland, Calif., counterparts, Havana's rap citadel routinely dismisses voices from outposts like Camaguey or Isla de Juventud.
But last year, Cienfuegos' Calle 35 (35th Street), an amateur rap trio, took top honors at a regional festival with the song "El Sud de Central," or "South Central." But lacking official resources, Calle 35 has been suspended while its members focus on work. "We're not only rappers," explains the group's manager, Humberto Leon. "We're fishermen."
Snubbing criticism, TecnoCaribe and the soulful, less-polished Concepto Cuba are leading Cienfuegos' hip-hop faithful. They're often paired at shows, where youths hungry for TecnoCaribe's danceable rap are first fed the socially conscious words of Diaz like needy families sermonized at a charity breakfast.
Maria's father wasn't crazy about his boy's obsession.
"I struggled for five years," Maria says. "But when he saw that I could make a good salary, he was very proud."
Now Maria averages 1,200 pesos a month, about twice the typical Cuban's salary. "This month it was 1,800," he says. "But it's gone in a day."
Diaz is passionate and animated, spouting philosophies on life and hip-hop like a faucet turned on high. Lately he's been inspired by Cuban author Raul Ramirez's novel, "Afuera Has Hecha Los Demonios," or "Demons Lurk Outside."
The book's hospitalized narrator is labeled a madman for pointing out the cracks in society's foundations, closing with sentiments that Diaz echoed last year in verse, his own lament on a crumbling world:
I'm not scared of the world around me
but I hate it anyway
In my solitude there is safety
and a way to pass the day
In my mind I build myself bridges
Ghosts chase me in my dreams
Let them think me crazy
Evil is all around me
Rap 'reflects real life'
The lights flicker and finally quit by Sunday afternoon amid pouring rain and howling bursts of high-pressure air. It's just the beginning of a night wrecked by Hurricane Michelle, a monster packing 130 mph fury.
Half a mile from Plaza Marti, Maria's rickety home shakes with the wind, but in the morning, the century-old structure is standing. Cienfuegos is lucky; the storm's only casualties, five in all, are in Matanzas, the province to the west.
Still, there is no corriente — no electricity. Cubans are used to temporary outages, but unrefrigerated food lasts only so long, so it goes without saying that there will be meat for lunch that day, and meat for dinner, plus anything else that is perishable.
Three days later, the power is back on, and word rapidly spreads of a TecnoCaribe/Concepto Cuba show in Pueblo Griffo, the housing project on the city's northeast reaches that is Concepto's home turf.
As night falls, Maria and his bandmates pack tight into a taxi with a bottle of cheap rum and Maria's latest teenage squeeze nestled firmly in his lap.
The city lights fade behind them. Scrawny houses emerge from the darkness as the cab lurches toward a recreation center where a thousand young cubanos bubble in the bass-beat darkness.
In Nike caps, soccer shirts and halter tops, they're 10-year-olds perched at stage's edge and college students like Antonio Hernandez, who says he likes el rap more for its lyrics than the music "because it reflects real life for us Cubans."
The United States and Cuba are like two old boxers, still standing, their tempestuous history with defining relations mostly in black or white. With us, against us. But raperos dance to a different beat altogether.
"When I criticize it's because I want my country to develop," Infante says. "If I sa