In the war of Cuban songs, there is no lack of massacres

It is remarkable that President Alberto Fernández declared that he was not informed of the internal situation in Cuba, when this Sunday of massive protests, the Venezuelan network Telesur, one of only two accessible foreigners, denied fake news cell phone footage of the crackdown, claiming it came from a former Argentine protest. The one who has shown knowledge as initiated The social panorama that there was the vice-president Cristina Fernández, who anticipated future turbulence by appointing, in an inviting court, the Argentinian rapper L-Gante. Its proximity to eminent figures of the Cuban government and its know how on the policies of seduction of artists, they teach him everything that governments can expect from regions of wild expression, allied to digital platforms. Like all counter-cultural movements, rap has an anarcho-libertarian and democratizing potential that has been felt in Cuba for years but with great insistence since 2020.

A song is no small task. It can inspire a people and support them in their certainties. So it happened with the They will not pass in the civil war, La Marsellesa in France, I only ask god, the dinosaurs Yes I come to offer my heart, in the collapse of the Argentine dictatorship and the transition. But it can also go down in history as the essential document of an aberrant era: thus, the German Germany over everything Yes Facing the sun, of the Spanish phalangists. Cuba, the musical country par excellence, will offer an anthology of both.

There is a real songbook war out there. In fact, they’ve been involved in a Gallos battle for months, as the rapper competitions are called, although in this case it’s not just about rap and hip-hop. The Trova tradition has served political purposes, albeit indirectly, since the 1970s. At the center of the current popular uprising, the theme Homeland and life, of rapper Yotuel Romero with singers residing in Cuba, will remain as the flag of a revolt without posters. The song only crowned the long tension between the musicians back home, around travel permits for various festivals in nearby Miami, the heart of the Latin record industry and home to generations of lyricists, performers and producers. This artistic exodus has been incessant since the 1960s, with its most outstanding jazz musicians; the film Buena Vista Social Club, by Wim Wenders, has only rediscovered, on the touch of a tropical exoticism, an old disintegrated group which finds itself in the twilight of their career.

Irony and megaphone

Two-way humor and the inspired use of irony are delightful features of Cuban identity and the basic arsenal of the art of injury. But in a paperless world, which has signed the death of corrosive political cartoon, resistance depends on the internet for the viralization of slogans and meeting a critical mass of frightened opposition, which has been living with its own fears for decades. years. The singing voice then reinforces its quality of social cry. Strictly speaking, the immediate origin of this challenge is the rejection of the decree-laws of 2018. The new batches of musicians, more trained in urban culture than in disciplined conservatories, and absent or excluded from the vast network of cultural centers that ‘they took their flag resistance to decrees 349 and 370. The first limits the freedoms of artistic creation, and although it is not in force in Cuba, it sets cultural objectives and traps artists through non-explicit censorship. It suffices that the Communist Party, through the state media, actively discredit artists such as Luis Otero Alcántara and Tania Bruguera: the application of the decree does not become essential. They are nipping their careers in the bud. The second decree restricts the freedom of assembly on the Internet. On Tuesday, the government evaluated the denunciation of the Twitter platform. Thus, a cultural engineering was sought that would promote the consumption of official music, in search of a unique narrative.

In a country which only has a free press on foreign portals, today in the dark, and which therefore depends on algorithms, popular music is a megaphone of freedom of expression and, moreover, a clothing identity material. Few countries as nationalistic as Cuba – this country is full of paradoxes and has played against them. Let’s do a little history. The new Cuban Trova For two decades it was the Soft Power of the Castro government, embodied in the figures of the exceptional Silvio Rodríguez and Pablo Milanés. With poetic cunning, they managed to escape party identification. In these final years of review, both were marred by collaborationism, despite both being punished by the government in their youth, the first sent to work on a fishing boat and the second, in grim ideological correctional facilities. , UMAP, simply “by marihuanero”. Once integrated, participated in the public lynching at the gates of musician Mike Porcel’s house, who did not adhere to the party line and continued to sing about subjectivity. Porcel emigrated shortly after the 1980 incident, which was exposed in the documentary Dreams of the peer, directed by José Aparicio Ferrera and Fraguela Fosado. The medium-length film was censored at the ICAIC 2020 Youth Fair in Havana and premiered at Bafici a few months ago.

The massacre: apologies and threats

However, in content, the current pro-government line is more grotesque than in the 80s. The rising figure is rapper Raúl Torres, whom everyone already calls a pioneer of the NecroTrova. Whenever there is catastrophic news for the government, the musician leaves everything and goes into the studio to record. From him came songs dedicated directly to worship, such as Ride with Fidel, upon his death in 2016, with a clip of well-known images from the historical archives – the glory of the Cuban revolution, encapsulated in black and white celluloid. Cristina herself was honored by this trova de Castro with Hugo Chávez. Among the last, Unblock me, of 2020. With many shots of anti-imperialist government posters and classic close-ups of popular physiognomies (the “pioneritos” schoolchildren present and the wrinkles of those who preserve their memory), the clip challenges dissident opponents: timba, clinking glasses with your sepoys and other silly parrots ”).

It’s scary that many of these government-commissioned songs invoke the “touch of a degüello” militiamen in the war of independence, so that the apologies are subtly interspersed with the bloody threat. At The strength of a country, a few months ago, the group BuenaFe returns to the most brutal of Creole practices in the middle of a propaganda song for the Sovereign vaccine. The words of Isaac Rojas begin more belligerent than scientific: “In this bottle, a plebeian silence roars / like Mambisa troops ready for the touch of a massacre /. In this container / democracy without boasting / pride for the honest / shame for the cowards. “Frightening, he invokes what with affectionate sarcasm we called in our southern provinces” Refalosa “, alluding to the consequences of the dreaded” tintin ” , the song of the razor Concludes, about the vaccine? : “Hard, pure, heals.”

Yet another, in response to Homeland and life. Without more decoration than a flag, Homeland or die, we will win It is sung by Yordan Santana, Adrián Santos and Adrián Garcia, who, in the middle of the ballad, change their civilian shirts for police shirts. It is literal.

A music label is born !, the Ministry of the Interior of Cuba. This is not a metaphor, the song is called Cuba is true. The rebel army, later called Revolutionary Armed Forces, celebrated its 60th anniversary in 2020 with a song composed by a member of the ministry and employees of amateur singers. They are dressed in olive green but sometimes they merge with the police and firefighters, the trainers of combat shepherds and with the coastal gendarmerie … The lyrics romantically evoke state security offices and seem intended to terrorize: “Soldier of restless silence / protecting my nation // I am the eyes of the dawn”.

More than organic, many artists have been co-opted. Last Monday, from his personal Instagram, the musician Ariel Díaz justified the repression: “I, the minister of the FAR, I ordered to push back all the units of land and sea. The MiGS to fly 24 hours. But don’t listen to me. My last vote of confidence in this government is that they keep my AKM for me ”. He was of course referring to the Soviet assault rifle, the modernized Kalashnikov.