Word: cuban
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...also closer than ever to losing its cultural patrimony. President-elect Barack Obama is hoping that small moves will help open up Cuba from the inside. During the campaign, he stopped short of calling for an end to the embargo but pledged to make it easier for Cuban Americans to travel and send money to Cuba. But one way or the other, change is coming to Cuba, and if the island is going to preserve its identity, it will need its music more than ever. But will my friends even be there to set the drama to song...
Oscar sees his current band's mission as simple: defending the Cuban sound. In 10 to 15 years, adds the bandleader Jesús, there won't be any Cuban music left on the island. It will all be in foreign countries, stagnant nostalgia acts like the kind that spun off from the Buena Vista Social Club album. That seems a dire prediction, but a Thursday night in Havana makes you wonder how Cuban music will survive. On Avenue G, the roqueros gather to get high and watch rock videos on makeshift outdoor screens. On the Malecón in front...
...Mickeys may be a minority, but more and more clubs are turning to house or techno instead of live music. And radio and TV stations--all government-run--are playing less timba, the Cuban version of salsa. These are the multiple threats: rock, electronica and, the biggest danger of them all, reggaeton--the Latinized hip-hop that has infiltrated from Puerto Rico, New York City and the Dominican Republic...
...have nothing against reggaeton," one of my friends told me in a typical refrain. "It's just not Cuban. And it's not music." Those are strong words, and Cuban hip-hop artists would argue that their music is edgier and more political. But for indigenous, righteous, complex and complete music, there is nothing like Cuba's timba. It has been a vital outlet for taking on taboos, like Los Van Van's early critique of rampant prostitution in a 1996 song about papayas: go ahead, they sang, touch it; it's a national product. During the economic crisis following...
...band, but not only did it split up (Oscar joined Los Reyes long after leaving El Septeto), but most of its members don't even live in Cuba anymore. Jorge and Piri, who played bass and drums, live near Cancún. They've got a regular gig at a Cuban-themed bar; Jorge married the bleached-blond singer who fronts the band, which now calls itself La Barbie de la Salsa. George works in Mexico City as a producer and guitarist with Margarita Vargas Gaviria, known throughout Mexico as the Goddess of the Cumbia...