Cuban rappers defy Castro, but to what end?

MARC LACEY
HAVANA — In a country like Cuba, where the state has its hand in just about everything, it is perhaps not surprising that there is a governmental body that concerns itself with rap music. Alarmed by the number of young people in baggy clothing and ill-aligned baseball caps rapping around the island, the government created the Cuban Rap Agency four years ago to bring rebellious rhymers into the fold. The person chosen to lead the agency was Susana García Amaros, 46, who studied Latin American literature at the University of Havana, specializing in the writings of Afro-Cubans. She said that when officials from the Ministry of Culture approached her for the job she told them that she was not a rap expert. But she said she appreciated the music and its underlying messages.

“Rap is a form of battle,” she said. “It’s a way of protesting for a section of the population. It has force. It’s not just the beat — the boom, boom, boom — it’s the lyrics.”

The rap agency became a co-sponsor of an annual hip-hop festival that began in 1994, and it started promoting rappers and helping them to produce occasional albums. But only artists whose rap does not veer too much from the party line qualify for the government aid. “We don’t have songs on a record that speak badly of the revolution,” Ms. García Amaros said on a recent day. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“Rap is a form of battle,” she said. “It’s a way of protesting for a section of the population. It has force. It’s not just the beat — the boom, boom, boom — it’s the lyrics.”

Here's a newsflash...Rap is a form of auditory fecal matter, not battle.

People with weapons killing the f**cking commies...that's battle.

Hip-Hop versus the Commies...too bad they can't both lose.
There will be many problems to deal with after Robert Redford's favorite dictator dies.

But now we'll also have to deal with the skidmark on the underwear of society known as hip-hop.

That would take care of two problems. Let the Homies shoot it out with the Commies. They can make a video and play it over and over and over on MTV.

You're wrong. Hip-Hop is quickly becoming the new form of protest. When the people took to the streets in the Ukraine a couple years ago, their protest song of choice was a hip-hop ditty called Together We Are Many by a local group called Jolly Green.

What the heck are you talking about?, hip hop is great. Also, if Cubans use this form of music as protest against the tyranny, so much the better.

I love this quote:

“We don’t have songs on a record that speak badly of the revolution,” Ms. García Amaros said on a recent day. “That doesn’t make sense.”

You're wrong. Hip-Hop is quickly becoming the new form of protest.

I agree that Hip-hop is form of protest. As a form of protest it is as useless as it is vulgar and stupid.

The only form of "protest" that gets the attention of regimes like Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Ukraine and others is either physical or financial force.

Physical force is usually in the form of crowds of people (preferably armed) storming the seat of power and removing the offending dictator.

If anyone ever raised a kid they would know the shrill cry of a baby is often a protest sound meant to create a reaction, the baby is not intelligent enough to speak, reason or say what it needs in plain speech. So what makes rap music any different other than the age of those making the noise? Its amazing , at least babies grow up.

It isn't my type of music, but there is definitely something go on there. It seems to have this universal appeal.

Not long ago I was in a hip-hop club in Vegas. There were young people there from across the country and around the world. I have never in my life seen a type of music that appeals to such a diverse cross-section of people. There were guys from Japan who couldn't speak six words of English but knew who Outkast and Snoop Dogg were...

Revolutions don't start with guns or violence, they start with ideas that bring crowds together and/or make obvious a like-mindedness among large groups of people.

So what makes rap music any different other than the age of those making the noise? Its amazing , at least babies grow up.

Ok, if rap is all they have then fine...rap away. I just thought I would interject my opinion that rap is the audio equivalent of primates flinging their poo. And about just as effective when it comes to taking down a regime like Cuba's.

The difference is that "rap" is cultivated, encouraged and vaunted as an art form, when in reality is audio nihilism.

If I detested a particular people or culture and wished to keep it inchoate and in chaos, I would gleefuly encourage hip-hop "culture" to take root and pervade.

Revolutions don't start with guns or violence, they start with ideas that bring crowds together and/or make obvious a like-mindedness among large groups of people. The actual...real world...revolutions mostly due start with guns or violence. And without guns an violence they wouldn't get very far. Even with the "awesome unifying force" of hip hop. Oh, yeah...since you are all "unified" it is easier for the Government to run you over with a Tank, Tianemen Square Style.
Yes, there are ideas that bring those armed people together but Hip-Hop is not the source of these ideas.
Ok, it has universal appeal, so do a myriad of other vices and detrimental habits.

If I detested a particular people or culture and wished to keep it inchoate and in chaos, I would gleefuly encourage hip-hop "culture" to take root and pervade.

There isn't a country or region on the globe that hasn't developed its own form of rap/hip-hop. Google "any country name" and "rap" and see what comes up. In Third World countries they download it from internet cafes and burn CDs.

Truthfully, it's absolutely the strangest phenom I've ever seen. I suspect that part of its spread has to do with the ease with which it's produced. A bright kid can produce it on a home computer by himself -- no band, no practice sessions, no Yokos -- and send it out to the world without ever leaving his room.

. The actual...real world...revolutions mostly due start with guns or violence. And without guns an violence they wouldn't get very far.

Dang, I must have missed all the shooting on CNN when the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Empire collapsed.

There isn't a country or region on the globe that hasn't developed its own form of rap/hip-hop. Google "any country name" and "rap" and see what comes up.

I could do the same "Google" thing for AIDS, rape, alchoholism, etc.
If a hundred million people have a stupid idea...it is still a stupid idea.

I could do the same "Google" thing for AIDS, rape, alchoholism, etc.
If a hundred million people have a stupid idea...it is still a stupid idea.

Those things aren't ideas -- they are either results or physical pathologies.

Find an "idea" or art form that has spread as widely.

Again, I'm not a fan or rap/hip-hop, but it isn't aimed at me. I'm an old guy.

your analogy is a bit more graphic than mine of a baby's crying for attention,

but I do agree that " 'rap' is cultivated, encouraged as an art form" and that the marketing of thuggery for profit has a lot to do with its popularity here in the states.

What is interesting is the underground popularity outside the commercial market, like Cuba. So without the money end of rap and it still being popular , that is proof it is definitely a counter culture way of communicating.

But agreed very primitive, almost childless, not really a lot of earthshaking inspirations come from listing to a rap song, its not like they will go out and write the Constitution, or the book of Acts or Homer's Iliad by listening to a rap song.

Also, you can take a copy of the American Constitution into the most repressive regime on earth and they'd shrug as you point furiously, "See, see, freedom!" But if you show up the next day with a Snoop Dogg CD they'd start doing backflips with joy.

For better or for worse, the freedoms expressed in American pop culture are a powerful thing and have great appeal to many people of the world. It is not uncommon to find immigrants of a "certain age" who first fell in love with America watching bootleg tapes of Baywatch or Miami Vice.

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