/ARTS WEEKLY/ MUSIC-CUBA: Rap on the Offensive

By Patricia Grogg Reprint | | Print |

Patricia Grogg

HAVANA, Aug 19 2003 (IPS) - Rap music in Cuba has made it past the initial phase of rejection and incomprehension that its controversial and critical lyrics produced, and continues to gain space in national culture. And now has its ninth festival – with local and international artists – under its belt.

With its crude musical poetry, the group Obsesión launched a new rap music recording label at the festival: "Le huye a la idea, pero la miseria tiene la cara fea,/ aunque no se crea, entonces !lo que sea!:/ Se arregla como puede:/sale sonando los tacones,/ Revisando mentalmente por si hay otras opciones,/pero no,/ tu cuerpo asume y entonces te llaman Puta."

In socialist-run Cuba, the musical genre’s progress has been such that the governmental Cuban Rap Agency was created to promote the island’s hip-hop and rap artists inside and outside of the country.

Meanwhile, the recording label Asere ensures the production of albums and the magazine ‘Movimiento’ facilitates exchange and reflection about this popular musical phenomenon.

"’Movimiento’ aims to illustrate and enrich all artistic and intellectual projects in the world of Cuban hip-hop. and to foment critical and self-critical discourse," states the publication in its first edition.

The magazine and the first album, "Asere1", from the new recording label, made their debut at the 9th Havana Rap and Hip-Hop Festival, Aug. 11-17, drawing rap artists from the United States and other countries to the Cuban capital.

The now annual event, which includes everything from massive concerts to seminars on music theory, has become a catalyst for the growth and evolution of rap and hip-hop as a cultural movement on the island, say observers and music experts.

The objective of the Cuban Rap Agency (ACR) is "to promote and market" the groups that represent this musical genre, director Susana García, told IPS.

"We are getting started in the marketing phase," she said. "We have achieved many positive things, especially in promotion, but there is a long road ahead of us."

Created in September 2002, the agency has under its wing nine rap groups, and is taking on two more. This is a small figure, even for Cuba, where there are some 1,000 bands, more than a few of which perform rap music.

"The idea is to not grow too fast, so that we can dedicate all the time necessary to those that already are involved in the agency," said García, who denied the notion that controversial lyrics might keep some groups from being accepted by the agency.

"We believe that if these messages encourage reflection, they are important for society," she said.

Most Cuban rappers follow the critical line, though some are more cutting than others.

"We’re artists and we reflect our realities, just like a painter or novelist does, but we always try to be constructive, no matter how difficult the song might seem," commented Norlan Leygonier, of the group Alto Voltaje (High Voltage).

Like the rest, Leygonier did not escape the problems associated with starting out. "Because of prejudices. It was something new and people didn’t know what this kind of music was. But we haven’t ever let up. We brought hip-hop to our neighbourhood, and now there are a lot of rappers," he says.

Rap was born in the 1970s in the black and Hispanic neighbourhoods of New York, and was later adopted by discontented young people in other cities of the United States, Europe, Latin America and Africa.

Rap involves rhythmic, spoken rhymes, set to music, and is a key component of hip-hop, which also encompasses artistic expression like breakdance, deejaying and graffiti.

The rap movement reached this Caribbean island in the late 1980s, and by the middle of t he 1990s there were several groups performing, with the first "Havana Hip Hop Festival" taking place in 1995.

According to Ariel Fernández, editor of ‘Movimiento’, this transfer of culture is not a "phenomenon that fell out of the sky," but has to do with the Cuban tradition of assimilating music and culture from abroad, and not just from the United States.

Rap music in Cuba gathered strength among the island’s youth amidst the economic crisis resulting from the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s after the socialist bloc had been a major support of the island.

The ensuing recession and governmental reforms to confront it brought social inequalities, prostitution, a dollar market that excluded many, and a rise in emigration.

"The young people began to recount what was happening, and the form of expression of that time was rap, which has served as a social chronicle, an honest voice that has put the good and the bad on the table, but in a constructive way," Fernández told IPS.

It is a phenomenon that is not so different from what the young people of the 1960s did with ‘Nueva Trova’ in the early years of the revolution led by Fidel Castro, said the magazine editor.

The ‘trovadores’ (troubadours) "made controversial music that was ultimately accepted as a new cultural movement," said Fernández, recognising that the "harsh criticism" in rap lyrics is not always so well accepted in today’s Cuba.