Word: cuba
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...salsa, the upstart group delivered the kind of musical shock that young Cubans may one day remember with the same fondness that American baby boomers feel when they recall first hearing Chuck Berry's Johnny B. Goode. Two years ago, Orishas introduced a new song, 537 Cuba, that transformed the stately Cuban classic Chan Chan (a universally recognized tune among Cubans, like Guantanamera) into a rollicking American-style hip-hop anthem. The song struck a chord; young fans began eagerly trading bootleg tapes of the group and flocking to their concerts. Orishas' fame rose so rapidly that last year...
...Mahia Lopez, 28, forms the highly popular duo Obsesion, says that "hip-hop is growing quickly. It's a way young people have of expressing what's inside." Many of the new rappers grew up in the so-called special period. After the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991, Cuba was economically squeezed, leading the government to crack down on small-time black marketeers, a move some felt hit Cubans of color harder than whites. One of Grandes Ligas' raps asks, "Why do you stop me, Mr. Policeman? Is it because my skin is black...
...circled the globe during the mid-1990s. Why did it take so long to get a foothold in Cuba, the richly musical culture that gave the world rumba and mambo? "Hip-hop everywhere else has one reality. We have another," explains Ariel Fernandez, 24, a DJ, organizer of Alamar's annual summer rap festival and a central figure in Havana hip-hop. Fernandez couldn't be more right: Cuba's record industry is entirely government run, from the recording studios to the record stores. Which means that raperos, like bus drivers, hotel clerks and doctors and lawyers, work...
Part of the cultural resistance to hip-hop has to do with the music's do-it-yourself style. Musicianship in Cuba is traditionally measured purely by formal skill. Even the players working the lounges of Havana hotels are stunningly accomplished. Older Cubans, accustomed to salsa, have difficulty accepting rap as music...
...foremost promoters and producers. Herrera was able to persuade the Ministry of Culture to provide a turntable, drum machine, sampler and keyboard for the studio in his aging Spanish-style home in Havana. Thus equipped, he has promoted, produced or managed a dozen or so hip-hop acts, including Cuba's founding fathers of rap, Amenaza, which later reformed as Orishas. Herrera also produced the U.S.-released CD Cuban Hip-Hop All Stars Vol. 1 (Papaya Records), one of the first compilations to capture the new wave of raperos. "Cuba is one of the last places in the world where...