By Patricia Grogg
HAVANA, Oct 22 2002 (IPS)

The international success of Orishas, a group of Cuban rap musicians living in Europe, is whetting the appetite of hundreds of young people on this island for "hip-hop" fame, a musical genre that emerged from the African-American community of the United States.

"There is a major market awaiting us," and Orishas are the proof, the lead of rap group Alto Voltaje (High Voltage), Norlan Leygonier, told IPS. "Many producers interested in Cuban rap have come to the island," he added.

The Cuban cultural authorities themselves recently announced the creation of a special entity to promote and market national rap music both inside and outside Cuba.

For those who make hip-hop music, a Cuban recording label "would be a big step forward," said Leygonier.

Orishas conquered European and U.S. audiences with their first album ("A lo cubano", 2000), in which the musicians achieve a convincing fusion of rap with typically Cuban rhythms, like the "son", "guaguancó" and rumba.

Rap, the musical component of the broader black cultural movement known as hip-hop, is characterised by the spoken lyrics of the songs over a background of music, often using "samples" of music by already-popular musicians, particularly from the genres of funk and soul.

Rap musicians, who in the 1970s performed accompanied by vinyl records, in the 1990s have taken advantage of digital technology, allowing them to change the rhythm of the sampled songs or to endlessly repeat one or several musical phrases.

Two of the members of Orishas originally came from the group Amenaza, a pioneer in Cuban rap that began to grow here with a vengeance in the mid-1990s.

"At that time, it was a totally new phenomenon. many doubted it would be possible to do rap in Spanish and in Cuba," recalled one of them, Hiram Riveri, in an interview with the Cuban digital magazine La Jiribilla.

Faced with the lack of technological means, the only option "was to rap over the music of U.S. instrumental albums, whatever happened to be on hand," he said.

Most of these Cuban rap groups – an estimated 500 in Havana alone – continue to use this method today.

"There are many things we don’t have, mostly in terms of adequate technology. But rap is our life and we have never let up," Alexander Pérez, another member of Alto Voltaje, told IPS.

The group was created in 1997, although Leygonier and Pérez, both 25, say they began making rap music before that. "At first we had problems, there were prejudices because it was something totally new," Leygonier said.

The lyrics of rap music tends to include of harsh criticisms of the country’s reality, which can cause some trouble with the official spheres on this socialist-run island.

"More than one of us has been questioned about revolutionary identity," said a rap musician, complaining that a "counterrevolutionary is someone who plants bombs," not someone who makes music.

Leygonier, meanwhile, assured that Alto Voltaje’s songs contain social, not political criticism. "We are artists and we reflect our reality, but we always try to be constructive, not matter how complicated the issue is," he said.

Alto Voltaje shared the stage at the inauguration of Havana’s eighth Hip Hop Festival, in August, with rapper Papá Humbertico, whose performance triggered hot debate.

"Policeman, policeman, you are not my friend. For Cuban youth, you are the worst punishment. I simply say to you, how do you expect us to respect you if you don’t know what respect is?" rapped Papá Humbertico.

But a few verses farther along he sang, "I love my flag, here I was born and here I will be buried. You can be sure that I am clear on the concept of the Cuban Revolution."

Rap festivals have been held in Havana since 1995, sponsored by the Saínz Brothers Association of young artists and by the Institute of Music.

After Papá Humbertico’s performance, the president of the young artists’ Association, Alpidio Alonso, said in an interview with La Jiribilla that rap represents a "culture of resistance" around the world, and primarily in its birthplace, the United States.

"A more commercial tendency exists in Cuba around this kind of music, but we are especially interested in the part of this genre that is most concerned with reflecting social reality," Alonso said.

He said he believes that most often the focus of the Cuban musicians in their criticisms is positive, although he did not rule out that in some cases the perspective of the rappers might be "extremist or hyperbolic".

Alexy Soto, 28, performs solo, as Papá Humbertico, but his approach is unique. "I rap to entertain. I don’t want to issue criticisms," he told IPS.

However, some of the lyrics written by Soto, who holds a degree in English and says it is very difficult to make a living from rap music, do not completely escape the tendency towards criticism.

The text of one of his rap numbers says: "My old lady opens the door, how perplexing that she doesn’t let me near her. With a face of disgust and disappointment, she opens her eyes and exclaims, Holy Virgin! He’s blacker than I thought! He’s jet black!"

Racism, which persists in Cuban society despite official decrees and policies against it, is a recurring theme among young rappers, most of whom are black or mulatto (of mixed African and European descent).

"The story I tell hasn’t happened to me, but I know of numerous cases of discrimination. That’s why I wrote the song," commented Soto.

"In the commercial arena, the competition is very stiff. There are many people making rap music in Cuba, but what is lacking is a recording label, a high-quality producer that can shape what we are doing," he said.

Rap was born in the mid-1970s in the black and Hispanic neighbourhoods of New York and was later adopted by youth in other U.S., European, Latin American and African cities.

Excerpt: