According to the official Cuban history, in the midst of the revolution of the first years, one of the emblems of Fidel Castro and other guerrillas during the war, the three words: Patria o Muerte. An emblem that has repeated millions of times in speeches, statutes or official propaganda, as famous as Hasta la victoria siempre. For the past six decades, however, a group of musicians has been accused of insulting the official logo and governor of Cuba, which has not yet been able to contain the digital broadcast of the song, responding with deep irritation. Everything took place last week, March 16th, when the musicians released in different platforms a song called Patria y Vida.
“We are the dignity of a peso entero pisoteada; In terms of pistols and palabras that have nothing to do with it ”, says the song of the Cuban rappers Maykel Osorbo and El Funky – who live in the island – together with other musicians who live in Cuba, like Yotuel, Gente de Zona and Descemer Good. “I do not teach, I do not have freedom, I do not teach; Ya no gritemos’ Patria o Muerte ‘sino’ Patria y Vida ”.
“This is going to be a song of freedom”, dijo desde La Habana a CubaNet el rapero El Funky. “Make the video very powerful, because in the situation where we are the people who do not want to take risks. Do not want to buy a closet, do not want to rent a room. All in all, there is a very mysterious mystery in a house where we can put those black phones, to make the video, and thank God. Pero ya tú sabes, bajo presión. All this precision ”.
Although the artists sing in an darkroom, the video edition is as critical as its lyrics. Arranca con la quema de un dibujo del héroe cubano José Martí, y las cenizas dejan ver detrás a un dólar con la cara de George Washington (“Cambiando al Che Guevara ya Martí por la divisa”, dice la canción sobre el poder del dólar) . In the second part of the video, there are images of police repression against the San Isidro youth movement, as well as an image of the movement movement, artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, embracing the Cuban flag: three weeks ago, both Otero and the Maykel rapper was temporarily detained by authorities after protesting in front of parliament to demand the resignation of the Minister of Culture.
“And the world has become aware that the San Isidro movement is continuing”, says the song about the science of young people that will pay the calls in November this year demanding freedom of expression in the island, after the rapprochement. In addition to criticizing Fidel’s lemma, the important song of tolerating the political differences in Iceland (“Who does not know the song, to think differently”), criticizes the opulence for foreigners in Cuban Balearics when Citizens follow the migration to the United States in order to escape extreme poverty (“Publicity for a paradise in Varadero; Mentras les madres lloran por sus hijos que se fueron”).
The governor’s reaction
In less than a week, the song has become more than a million and means of reproduction on YouTube and, although the Cuban governing has intended to have more control over political discourse in speeches, we can not deny that the song expands as fugue. “Quisieron borrar nuestra consigna y Cuba la viralizó en redes”, writes the four on his Twitter account the Cuban president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, in defense of Patria o Muerte, when the opposition song is expended.
The Jews at night, in addition, the governing logro that interrupts the regular transmission in the official channels to pass the national anthem at 9 pm, and the official periodicals also published various articles criticizing the song of the rappers. “Huele azufre el ‘arte” que nace a merced de la voluntead de quienes heidense –a toda costa ya todo costo– para intentar irrumpir, desde la más burda political inderencia, en la soberanië de una nación “, writes the official diary Granma, aludiendo to a supuesta injerencia extranjera entre las critique de la isla. “The text is unequivocal about the restoration of capitalism and the revival of the revolutionary power”, explains another of the official articles.
The attempt by the rapists to force the song to be censored. Anoche dos activistas Independientes [Osmel Adrián Rubio y Anyell Valdés] writes ‘Patria y Vida’ in the portal of his house in La Habana. Today the security forces of the regime are setting up the house and courting the internet. If you are nervous there is the regime for this song ”, denunciation on twitter José Miguel Vivanco, director of Human Rights Watch, outlined a video of 159,000 seguidores and America. The Vice-President of the European Parliament, Dita Charanzova, also shared the video.
“I believe that this song reflects the state of orphanage in which the country is located. There is no reference to the fact that Donald Trump is not a president who responds to the defamatory artists. In Cuba, only Díaz-Canel has done so, he also has the apparatus of the State “, says El País the Cuban writer Carlos Manuel Álvarez. “This situation reflects the fragility or state of mind that the Cuban governing body has, which can be seen as a song composed by six or so musicians who are on the verge of political stability.”
The episode is a new chapter in the political history of Cuban music, in which some singers are looking for the regime (like the thief Silvio Rodríguez), others are symbolic converts of the Cuban exile (like the queen of Cruz), most recent young rappers who live in the island of Gobierno with their most inspired hip-hop verses from the United States (like the Los Aldeanos rappers, now in Miami “Cambiado al Che Guevara por dinero”).
The song of Patria y Vida has as a sentence: “If you have, you have five, you double; They are acaboos, they are transcending the domino ”. If you are interested: the famous domino game in Iceland has the number 9, when in the other Caribbean islands only from the 6th, and this “trancado” has no more game to play. The fifth new, 59, fue the glorious year of Fidel, when the war broke out, and the rappers appealed to the Gobierno sheet during the year for only grit Patria o Muerte and play the game. The record of the rappers in this history, in cambio, is the future: the double dose, there will be 2020 in which the San Isidro movement, or the 2022, will be carried out, in which he hopes to see a Cuba with much more life than death.
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