{"id":691,"date":"2012-04-11T13:26:37","date_gmt":"2012-04-11T13:26:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.quiliby.com\/all\/?p=691"},"modified":"2012-04-11T13:26:37","modified_gmt":"2012-04-11T13:26:37","slug":"cuban-music-still-thriving-still-unheard-in-u-s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.quiliby.com\/all\/cuban-music-still-thriving-still-unheard-in-u-s.html","title":{"rendered":"Cuban Music Still Thriving, Still Unheard in U.S."},"content":{"rendered":"

The following interview, initially published in New America Media<\/em> and reproduced in Repeating Islands<\/em>, presents some insights into the popular music culture of Cuba.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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From charanga to son to timba, Cuba has long been a country world-renowned for its distinct musical styles and traditions. Nevertheless, people inside the United States \u2013 even the most ardent music lovers \u2014 aren\u2019t likely to become aware of the newest Cuban artists or to hear the latest musical trends, short of paying an actual visit to the island. Greg Landau is a producer, musician and educator from the Bay Area who\u2019s traveled to Cuba more than 30 times. New America Media editor Jacob Simas sat down with Landau in his Alameda recording studio, where they spoke about Cuban music \u2014 where it\u2019s been, where it is now, and what it can tell us about the psychology of the people and the state of affairs on the island today.<\/em>\u00a0 To hear an audio version of this interview with music excerpts, click here<\/a>.<\/em>
\nJacob Simas: You recently came back from Cuba with a stack of CD\u2019s \u2014 new music by Cuban artists that are unavailable commercially here in the United States. What struck you about the music that is perhaps different from where Cuban music has been in the past? <\/em><\/strong>
\nGreg Landau: <\/strong>Well, Cuba has a long history of music and a really rich tradition that combines a lot of different elements, and what I\u2019ve seen in every trip is how the music evolves, and how each generation takes elements that they\u2019ve inherited and makes them into a new blend. So the process continues, and a lot of [today’s] groups are innovating, using [traditional] elements, but also the things they hear from outside the country. So you hear reggaeton, hip-hop, cumbia, roots reggae and heavy metal \u2014 all these things that are popular outside of Cuba, being interpreted by Cubans in their own way.
\nBut what\u2019s amazing is the level of virtuosity. Because people are able to study and gain that virtuosity because they\u2019re playing all the time, they have time to rehearse, and they\u2019re getting schooled in music schools.
\nJS: Are young people and elders today in Cuba listening to completely different types of music, or is there a shared appreciation?<\/em><\/strong>
\nGL: <\/strong>The music really crosses generations more than it does here, because first, dancing is common to everybody. Everybody dances [to] music that comes out on the radio, and there\u2019s a mix of old and new. Young people are forced to learn the traditional dance styles, and they know them. They know how to do the danzon; they know the rumba. They\u2019re taught this in school. There\u2019s education. So it does cross generations a lot. Even most of the popular groups \u2014 a lot of them have been around for a long time \u2014 are constantly evolving. Still probably the number one group in Cuba is Los Van Van, which would translate into English as \u201cThe Go Go\u2019s.\u201d They\u2019re still the number one group. They\u2019ve changed singers and new generations of musicians have come through, but the essence of it is that they take Cuban music and combine it with contemporary elements, especially American funk, which is what\u2019s kind of popular right now.
\nJS: People in the U.S. really have no easy way to hear these tunes. Do you see that changing? Do you see the music industry opening up a little bit or new avenues being created for Cuban music to be heard by people over here?<\/em>
\nGL: <\/strong>Well first of all, Cuban musical artists are popular all over the world, and especially all over Latin America. But here in the U.S. not really, because the embargo has been very efficient in stopping that flow of information, that flow of music. And also, the commercial music industry here is not really open to this music. Some of the elements of the music are a little too sophisticated for the pop music that we hear on the radio. The popular Cuban music style timba \u2013 which is kind of a modern evolution of salsa \u2014 is too fast and too complicated for many of the dancers. And a lot of the [Cuban] groups also have sophisticated messages that are very local, very much about Cuba; about the religious elements; [about] the existential crisis of a Cuban, which is very different than here (in the U.S.)
\nJS: Can you give an example?<\/em><\/strong>
\nGL:<\/strong> Well, a lot of the songs are making reference to the Afro-Cuban religions, and the fall of the Soviet Union that has caused a vacuum in Cuba, where the ideological foundation, the spiritual foundation of the society based on these communist principles, is gone. People have to fill in the void and figure out or find a way to explain why they\u2019re here. What are we doing while we\u2019re here on this planet? What\u2019s our goal? What are we supposed to accomplish? How do we treat each other? Kind of the whole basis is gone.
\nSo we can see that much of the Afro-Cuban religions come in to fill in this gap; that people start reaching back in their history and their tradition to find that social glue. A lot of the music talks about this. There are many young people making references to the Afro-Cuban religions, to this spirituality, and to this explanation that it provides. And people [ask], how did Cuba survive this long? People thought that with the fall of the Berlin wall it would be over, but it wasn\u2019t. So people have found ways to kind of pull it together, and this is a message in a lot of the music\u2026 this new spiritual foundation that\u2019s kind of holding things together.
\nJS: Music is also often a platform for political messaging. Is there a similar platform for musicians in Cuba to speak about politics, or not?<\/em>
\nGL:<\/strong> Well yeah. A lot of political debate and a lot of political discussion in Cuba goes on through the arts. People look at Cuban film. It\u2019s very critical of government policies, many of the popular Cuban films, and it sort of opens up a gap to allow people to discuss these things that maybe can\u2019t be discussed in other forums. Music, too. Starting with the Nueva Trova movement of the early \u201860s \u2014 it really begins in 1967 \u2013 that opens up this musical poetry, a musical poetry that kind of examines and gives people tools for understanding what\u2019s going on around them.
\nThere\u2019ve been maybe eight generations since the Nueva Trova movement, of musicians that have taken this up \u2014 not necessarily playing dance music, but playing music for people to listen to, to make critiques of society, to open up dialogues. So we see, going back to Silvio Rodriguez and Pablo Milanes, who are still active; Noel Nicola, Sara Gonzalez, and then the next generation that incorporates elements of rock, and then we see elements of jazz; and so they\u2019re experimenting with not just the content but the form, and pushing the envelopes of pop music.
\nJS: How does the music industry work in Cuba?<\/em><\/strong>
\nGL:<\/strong> Well first off, I wouldn\u2019t really describe it as an \u201cindustry.\u201d In Cuba, many of the groups are on salary, which really creates a new dynamic. First, in a capitalist society, groups rise and fall based on their popularity and their money making capacity, where in Cuba, this is very different. Some of the groups are sustained because they\u2019re on salary, they survive maybe even when they\u2019re not so popular but they\u2019re still going\u2026 because these are traditions that are preserved.
\nSo for instance, La Orquesta Rev\u00e9\u2026 Elio Rev\u00e9 was popular in the 1960?s, and he had a big band that played changui (a traditional Afro-Cuban musical style) from Guantanamo, and made all these different variations on it. There was changui with violins and heavy drumming, and they went through phases of being popular and not popular. And now his son has taken over the group and continued it, and they\u2019ve incorporated new elements.
\nSo the groups are kind of like institutions that are maintained, like a preservation hall. These forms of popular music are seen as important, and these elements in Cuban culture are maintained way past when they probably would be in a capitalist society.
\nJS:<\/strong> So, the Cuban state is subsidizing its artists. How does that impact everyday Cubans?<\/em><\/strong>
\nGL: <\/strong>[Cuban musicians] can go play for free in the town squares all over Cuba. Every weekend, all over Cuba, there are huge concerts in every town. So what do you do on a Saturday night? Do you go to a club? No, you go to the town square, with thousands of other people, for free, and listen to music and dance and party. This goes on very frequently. There are frequent festivals and these groups tour all over Cuba, mainly playing for free in town squares, in schools, in hospitals, army bases, farms\u2026 wherever. The idea [behind government subsidized musicians] was that one of the rights of being a citizen is the right to culture.<\/p>\n

This youtube video shows La Orquesta Rev\u00e9 in performance and the joyous response of the audience as they sing and dance to the infectious music.<\/strong>
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