Will Cuba Tear Down the Wall Around its Musicians?

Celia Cruz, via culturalectiva.com

My grandma, Yaya, used to tell me stories of her brothers screwing wires into the ground to hear American music, hidden from the secret police, in a scene that could very well be out of a dystopian young adult novel. Long hair, cowboy boots, listening to jazz—all could be crimes against the state in the early years of the Castro regime in Cuba. She would tell me these stories in the backyard when I was a kid, speaking quietly, as if she were still living within the impermeable cell walls of the island. 

Her memories of Cuba under Castro is why she loved Willy Chirino. The Cuban exile and musician expressed his artistic practice in this way:

“Yo me siento inspirado y un son estoy cantando, anunciándole a todos mis hermanos que nuestro día ya viene llegando.

“I feel inspired, so a son [classically Cuban genre] I am singing, announcing to all of my siblings that our day is coming.” 

Chirino is the voice of many frustrated Cuban-Americans, who, with desperate loyalty, cling to the vision of a free Cuba—the day that is coming. The day when Cuba would finally be free, and Willy Chirino could return. 

For some, that day has already come. Nearly seven years ago, a ban was silently uplifted across Cuban radio stations. The music of famed anti-Castro rebels would be played at last—that of Celia Cruz, Gloria Estefan, and, yes, Willy Chirino. According to the BBC, government officials told radio disc jockeys that the blacklist of artists was outdated and had served its purpose. Now, it was time for Cuba to open its doors. 

So maybe that wall is being torn down. But are musicians protesting the government truly free today, or is there still a robust regime suppressing their expression? Will President Díaz-Canel actually tear down this wall that separates Cuba from the rest of the musical world?

Only parts, it seems. While the music of past dissenters gets radio time, a new Orwellian decree prevents contemporary protesters from reaching a wide audience, showing that Cuba still has a long way to go in freeing its musicians.

To find the roots of this censorship regime, we can go back to 1976, when Cuba, under Castro’s autocratic rule, approved a new constitution. Here are some highlights from Chapter 4, Article 38, Section 2:

d) Artistic creation can be freely expressed, as long as its content is not contrary to the Revolution. The forms of expression in art are free;

e) The State, to the end of elevating the culture of the people, is in charge of elevating and developing artistic education, the vocation involved in its creation, and the cultivation of art and the capacity of appreciating it.”

In line with its stated purpose of “elevating the culture of the people,” the Castro government introduced a robust program to support the production of music as propaganda. Its first step was to create institutions that would make mass-music production possible. Cuba promised free musical education and guaranteed salaries and housing for the most prominent musicians--all of whom abided by the Orwellian constitution, of course. As a result, music crafted and supported from the inside—nueva trova—was especially appealing to any young hopefuls looking for a future. 

The idea of the state elevating the culture of the people was fundamental not only to Castro, but to the beliefs of his fellow revolutionaries. For instance, Che Guevara—the Argentinian doctor-turned-revolutionary-murderer affectionately referred to as “el Ché” by a certain strain of academics—insisted the new order was to be “socialism with pachanga [a street party with Latin music].” Knowing that music and song were, and are, instrumental to the Cuban sociocultural fabric, he aimed to turn them into tools of conscious propaganda that would serve as powerful mobilizing factors in rebellion and revolution. This idea would manifest most notably in Silvio Rodríguez’s government-backed songs in support of Cuba's revolutionary achievements, especially in Nicaraguan communist propaganda. Take Betto Arcos’ perspective on Silvio’s song, a classic revolutionary anthem: 

“[Silvio Rodriguez’s “Te Doy Una Canción”] is a song that is an anthem, and it became an anthem all over Cuba, all over Latin America because it says I give you a song, my homeland. I give you a song with the hands that kill, with the hands that give you a guerilla, with the hands that work day to day. This is someone that was deeply immersed into the revolutionary culture of Castro, and he sang the songs of the revolution.”

–Betto Arcos, on an NPR Podcast on “The Birth Of 'Nueva Trova Cubana' And Other Music Styles In Castro's Cuba”

Despite its eventual embrace of music like Silvio Rodriguez’s, the Cuban government initially regarded nueva trova with skepticism, even jailing a major proponent of the style, Pablo Milanés, for “insubordination” in 1967. But by the early ’70s, nueva trova was institutionalized and supported by the state. 

When Yoruba (Cuban Afro-Catholic religious music, santería) was legalized by Castro in 1959, it was viewed as an explicit upholding of the tenet of natural equality, which is fundamental to communist ideology. It rendered Castro’s initial legalization of historically African music into a genuine move toward a racially-egalitarian society. Of course, it could also be seen as a reaction against what Castro saw as the inherently racist system of imperial capitalism associated with Cuba’s American foes. For these reasons, government-supported agencies like the Casa de las Americas had mandates to research and preserve uniquely Afro-Cuban musical traditions, as well as support the nueva trova. The Ministry of Culture also tried to elevate the rumba, once a street dance of the mainly black working class first developed in the nineteenth century slums of Havana and Matanzas, into a truly national dance through formal training for performers.

Like nueva trova, Yoruba music was originally viewed with ambivalence. Over time, with its eventual incorporation into musical curricula and government-sponsored stages, the styles were legitimized. The new constitution also raised these styles’ profile; Yoruba only became acceptable when the government took it upon itself to elevate traditional Cuban music.

Fidel Castro not only created an entire institution behind music-as-propaganda, he intensely embraced music in his speeches. In an infamous 1961 address, Castro spoke out about the rights (or lack thereof) of artists and musicians at Cuba’s national library, stating, “What are revolutionary and non-revolutionary writers’ and artists’ rights? Under the revolution: everything; against the revolution, none.” The Castro regime made it clear that revolutionary music was integral to the revolutionary agenda. 

While pro-government music was given a platform in Cuba, subversive music was silenced. With few exceptions, Cuba viewed emigrating Cuban musicians as defectors and gusanos (worms), banning both their music and the formal study of it within Cuba. 

This ban included, of course, the music of Celia Cruz, the Queen of Salsa. In the early 1960’s, Celia was touring with La Sonora in Mexico when Fidel Castro and his regime came to power. All but one band member refused to go back to Cuba under those political conditions, which led Castro to issue a lifetime ban on their entry into the country. In 1962, after Celia’s mother passed of cancer, she attempted to return but was not granted government permission. 

After her death in 2003, the national Cuban newspaper Granma reported her death in a mere two-sentence obituary: 

“Durante las últimas cuatro décadas se mantuvo sistemáticamente activa en las campañas contra la Revolución Cubana generadas desde Estados Unidos, por lo que fue utilizada como ícono por el enclave contrarrevolucionario del Sur de la Florida.” 

“During her last four decades she maintained herself systematically active in the campaigns against the Cuban Revolution generated from the United States, acts for which she was utilized as an icon for the counterrevolutionary enclave in South Florida.”

Thirty-seven studio albums, two Grammy Awards, three Latin Grammy Awards, and a Guinness World Record for Longest Working Career as a Salsa Artist were all reduced to nothing by the government-sponsored national newspaper.  

To Castro, Celia Cruz was only another “ideological diversionism”, a distraction from his authoritarian project. That’s how Fidel baptized the cultural phenomena that occurred outside his sphere of influence, and, consequently, at the periphery of his small island of approval. The early years saw the most stringent censorship. That’s the time through which my grandma lived, when her brothers listened with their ears pressed against the ground, wanting more than anything to know what was going on. Celia wasn’t the only one banned in this era. Major Cuban artists who showed express distaste for the tyrannical power would be banned from returning—Olga Guillot, Rolando Lecuona, Paquito D’Rivera, Arturo Sandoval, Willy Chirino—even though their music wasn’t nearly as abrasive as their speech. Their return to radio stations would only be allowed after the lift of the ban. 

With the lift of the ban, these artists’ work joined the traditional music that was seen as quintessentially Cuban, that music that had been allowed and supported by government-funded institutions. But what does the government say about reggaetón and other contemporary youth genres?

Reggaetón is a Carribbean fusion of rap, hip-hop, and Latin styles. In Latin America, rap and hip-hop emerged during the 1990s as vehicles for “cultural exchange and even detente.” Some 500 rap groups are found in Cuba, and by 2000 there had been several visits by Cuban rappers to the U.S., as well as visits by progressive American rappers to the island. The development of Cuban rap seems to parallel several other Latin American rap movements, all of which emphasize awareness about underlying social problems. 

The government found rap and reggaetón categeorically vulgar and demeaning because of their overtly sexual lyrics and banned them in 2012. Though in some ways the restrictions have eased up in the years since, Cuba still prohibits reggaetón artists from appearing on most state-run TV and radio and from recording in state-run studios. 

“No to Decree 349”, images from the brutal arrest against Cuban rapper Pupito

Havana, Cuba 2019

In light of these preexistent rules, the recent announcement of Decree 349 in July 2018—one of the first actions made by President Diaz-Canel—was declared by the Artists At Risk Connection as particularly dangerous. Under the decree, “all artists, including collectives, musicians and performers, are prohibited from operating in public or private spaces without prior approval by the Ministry of Culture”. The public order offenses under Title IV (many of which could in theory be applied to musical production or performance) are blatantly opposed to true freedom of expression. Title IV also gives authorities power to shut down artistic activity if they feel something contains “sexist, vulgar or obscene language.” As usual, when it comes to legislation restricting freedom of speech, the broader it is, the more restrictive it is. A popular Cuban rapper, Pipo, is a victim of this censorship. His brutal arrest this year may have been a result of its strict enforcement.

 Because reggaetón is not “elevated” art cultivated in institutions when compared to Yoruba music for example, it is seen as subversive of the regime, and not worthy of display on the national stage. This sort of suppression is most explicitly represented in recent Cuban censorship with Decree 349. Though the uplift has allowed old-school Cuban music to return (the kind that is not overtly anti-Castro) the Decree prevents contemporary music like reggaetón from fully flourishing. 

The president of the Cuban Music Institute, Orlando Vistel Columbié, spoke in its defense. He told the official Cuban government newspaper Granma in 2012: 

“Neither vulgarity, nor mediocrity, will be able to obscure the richness of cuban music … We refer to pseudoartistic music, the kind that has nothing to do with our society’s ethics.”

He goes on to say, “Del son y la salsa al jazz y de la canción y la rumba...Esa es la verdad de la música y de los músicos cubanos.” (“Of a son and salsa and jazz and of song and rumba … These speak truly to music and Cuban musicians.”) As much as Vistel insists it does not, this sentiment replicates the elitism of Cuba’s past. While older styles, such as salsa, have been set free, the newer styles crafted by young people have been met with extreme opposition. This contradiction reveals a great chasm between what the officials say and what is actually happening. In reality, these restrictions are no attempt at moralizing the Cuban people, but an effort to limit what the Cuban people can hear. It’s yet another implementation of the same principles outlined in Castro’s 1976 constitution. 

Cuban government officials scrambled with this new subversive genre at its advent. In an attempt to “heighten” it, as they did with Yoruba, they formed the Cuban Rap Agency, or CRA, as a way to deal with urban music on the island. Musicians in a genre with dissent at its root were, of course, unhappy. One Cuban rapper said, “When the Cuban Rap Agency has to make a decision, whose interests are they going to protect? The government’s? Or hip-hop’s?” 

In 2018, Vice Minister of Culture Fernando Rojas gave an interview in Havana and said that he accepted the “well-intentioned criticisms of Cuba’s artistic community,” but that protests “were part of wider, foreign-backed scheme to destabilize the country by damaging the image of its cultural institutions.” So yes, the Cuban Rap Agency was going to protect the government’s interests. Not hip-hop’s. And not reggaetón’s. 

In a supposedly new regime under President Díaz-Canel, old patterns nevertheless return. Artists who dare to skirt the edges of the island, beyond the boxes of censorship, are punished. The difference this time is that modernity and the internet make total censorship far more difficult. If pictures hadn’t surfaced, we wouldn’t have heard of Pipo’s brutal arrest. There, perhaps, is a semblance of hope.

It is difficult to say if the day will come when Cuban music will be completely free. For Willy Chirino and upholders of classic Cuban tradition, that day of returning may be much sooner than once expected. For reggaetoneros, whose voices of dissent are overt, that day may be far away. 

“Una revolución no envía a jóvenes injusto a prisión

Tampoco censura a los periodistas independientes

O a los artistas contestatarios de la televisión

Respeta de cada persona su opinión

Eso es una revolución”

“A revolution does not send young people unjustly to prison

Neither does it censor independent journalists

Nor contesting artists on television

It respects the opinion of every person

That is a revolution.”

–Pupito’s lyrics, from a September 2, 2019 interview with 14ymedio while he was in prison