Ernesto Jorge Hidalgo, better known as DJ Tiko, died at sea trying to reach the United States from the Mexican city of Tijuana. Friends of the musician, who was 39 years old and originally from Holguín, confirmed to this newspaper that he did not manage to survive the crossing, unlike another Cuban with whom he jumped into the water, who managed to reach the shore and surrender to the Border Patrol. .
“None of his friends in Mexico told them of his intention to swim across,” says a friend of the artist who lives in that country. The last contact with Tiko Hidalgo occurred on April 12, the same day it came to light that some Cubans had tried to skirt the border fence, which juts out into the turbulent Pacific about a hundred meters.
The video in which it is possible to observe the Cubans and how one disappears was broadcast on social networks. The friend of the Cuban musician closely followed the incidents and, days later, she saw a publication indicating that a body had been recovered. He stayed in shock by certifying, by tattoos, that it was Tiko Hidalgo.
So far, the musician’s family in Cuba has not issued any statement and meanwhile, the friend in Mexico is carrying out the paperwork to send the body to the island. Tiko’s father, Jorge Hidalgo Pimentel, one of the most important exponents of plastic arts in Holguin and president of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (Uneac), “is in bed and hasn’t heard about it”.
Hidalgo’s death “hit the electronic scene on the Island”, says the music critic Michel Hernández, who defines it in a post as “one of the greatest exponents of electronic music in eastern Cuba”.
The news about the death of Dj Tiko has caused a stir in Cuba. Among those who knew him was informant Amilcar Melián Jr., who in his social networks he refers to Dj Tiko as “one of the most authentic and ingenious people we met”: “I think I can speak in the plural to somehow embrace my friends who mourn him, he had an extraclass intelligence, and one intuited it by his sizes”.
The last contact with Tiko Hidalgo occurred on April 12, the same day it came to light that some Cubans had tried to skirt the border fence through Tijuana.
Melián recounts that when he found out that Dj Tiko was residing in Mexico, he said to himself: “Holguín was left empty.” And this Monday when he got up with the confirmation of the producer’s death “is what it feels like now, that a hole was made for us, a crater, it was too happy and intelligent and noble.”
Melián accompanies his feelings with the phrase he heard Hidalgo say on one occasion: “He said something like: ‘Let’s see, how can I tell people that I can’t play music because the Culture Sector hasn’t paid the bill yet? of electric current’.
Hidalgo’s absence also raised questions in Melián, as he was unable to find the precise words to let his six-year-old son know that there is a visa to leave Cuba, but for Cubans who dare to obtain it, they are labeled “plagued”, in addition that it is difficult for them to get a visa, and that they leave Cuba renouncing everything, and that they even die at sea, or in the Rio Grande, fleeing from something that stinks in their country”
“Carrying a light sleep is everyone’s task… your music is everything! every young Cuban walks through your streets and admires your legacy,” was the feeling of Didier Roldan, the Cuban musician’s production assistant who on his Facebook profile He indicated Guadalajara as his place of residence.
Tiko Ernesto Hidalgo Mariño, as can be read on his Facebook wall, founded the Electrozona group. He also gave an important boost to Electro Romerías, a space for the promotion of the work of Cuban DJs and producers during the Romerías de Mayo and a member of the provincial council of the Hermanos Saíz Association in Holguín.
His restlessness led him to give way to the Stereo G festival, in Gibara. “His work of him behind the machines always raised the public that follows Cuban electronics,” mentions journalist Michel Hernández.
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