After going into exile in Miami, in 2010, Rodríguez began to target the political regime of the Island.
MIAMI, United States. – Cuban singer Alfredito Rodríguez, popular on television and the island’s music scene for decades, passed away this Thursday in Coral Gables, Florida, at age 74. “You were faithful to your music, to your audience, to your principles, to your ideals, to your roots and most importantly, to our family,” one of his sons fired him on Facebookwith whom he shared not only his name but also his passion for music.
After going into exile in Miami, United States, in 2010, Rodríguez began to target the political regime of the Island, which he blamed for the deterioration of the living conditions of Cubans, the lack of freedoms and censorship. In an interview granted to CubaNet In January of last year, he stated: “My country hurts me a lot, the Cubans hurt me,” and defined the island’s system as “an arrogance and a dictatorship.”
In that dialogue, Rodríguez insisted that his criticisms were not directed at Cuba as a nation but at political power. “It is one thing to speak ill of Cuba and one thing to speak ill of the misgovernment that exists in my country, they are two completely different things,” he said, before reiterating that his artistic training was not attributed to official institutions: “The people simply made me, the people formed me.” When asked to summarize in one word what he wanted for Cuba in 2025, he responded: “Alas, total freedom.”
At another time, the popular musician recalled sanctions and suspensions during his time as a television personality in Cuba: “I also had a lot of problems with my hair, suspensions on television, on stations,” he said. He also narrated the dispute over good persona song that, as he explained, was “totally suspended” and that led him to appear before the ICRT to “claim” his rights. Although the version circulated that he came with a bat, he denied it in the interview: “I am a being who has always been away from violence (…). I went to claim my rights.”
In January 2023, Rodríguez praised a musical performance by his son and, immediately, he went on to criticize authoritarianism: “I breastfed my children with a taste of the country, and I believe I have weaned them from all signs of surrender to dictatorial positions, lacking free expression and cutting off their wings.”
Another axis of his statements was the relationship between uprooting and belonging. In a message spread on their networks in March 2023wrote: “One does not leave what one loves so much,” and returned to the distinction between country and regime: “Political system and nation are very different things.” In the same text he assured: “Not only did I return, I never left.”
Later, in December 2024, the musician asked on Facebook that “Havana and all of Cuba would flourish again,” and he closed with a phrase with a political tone: “You can’t be a seagull in the sea, because people with a lack of command and arrogance shoot to kill when we fly too low. Come on, Cuba, fly high!”
In the interview of CubaNetRodríguez also recounted an episode that he presented as a symptom of state control: the denial of entry to Cuba to his son Alfredo, who worked “for many years with the missing Quincy Jones.” When referring to that case, he stated: “No one understands that you deny entry to a person (…) and that you simply refuse to respond that you let him in. That already says it all,” and he concluded: “No one has to ‘let’ me enter my country, any of us.”
Rodríguez, born in Havana, went on to host highly watched spots on Cuban Television, and maintained a musical career with hits like Drenched in sweat and Sagittariusin addition to a sustained presence on stages such as the Karl Marx theater in Havana.
