“Let me say goodbye to my people,” musician Emilio Frías demanded in front of the microphone this Saturday when security employees of the Casa de la Música in Centro Habana tried to turn off the audio equipment and thus paralyze the concert of his group, El Niño y la TRUE. The public reacted in support of the singer but finally the presentation was censored, according to a video published by the reporter Manuel de la Cruz.
“I could be wrong, but my mistake is mine. I’m not saying that many people think what I think. If they’re going to get like that, don’t invite me anymore,” Frías questions, in this place on Galiano Street, several employees to which is seen, in the control area, demanding that the technicians cut the sound to prevent the musician from continuing to speak and sing through the speakers.
“Get me off television, get me off the radio, get me out of everywhere, but the only place you won’t be able to get me out of is the hearts of all Cubans,” says El Niño, alluding to the censors. Among cries of solidarity, the public remains standing and shows its support for the group that tries to resume the concert on stage.
“Get me off television, get me off the radio, get me out of everywhere, but the only place you won’t be able to get me out of is from the hearts of all Cubans.”
Frías begins to sing the theme Water for Yemaya when a man pins down the audio technician and forcibly carries him out of the room. “Can’t I say goodbye? Can’t I say goodbye?” Repeats the singer meanwhile and the response of one of the officials, in a long-sleeved white shirt, is to indicate with his hands that he has to stop the concert.
The first chords of the song begin to sound, despite the tense situation and the public accompanies Frías with the refrain “Water!”. But the officials force the room to be vacated. “Don’t forget this!” El Niño warns and a few seconds later the audio equipment turns off and people have to leave.
In the images, a security employee can also be seen violently removing another man from the premises, while some people shout “Singao!” and “Leave it, singao!”.
This Sunday through your facebook account, the musician lamented the incident: “One day the children will laugh, the grandparents will rest in their armchair again, the young people will have a dream, but a dream here.” He added that by then he will “witness that indolence, abuse and greed were the end and extinction of an absurd bloodthirsty ideology, which cost blood, pain and tears.”
In his emotional text, Frías added that “one day goodness will flourish and good music will adorn life, one day, which is not today but will come, our illusion, hand in hand with our sacrifice, will swim in the sea of abundance and multiply the fruits of our harvest, one day another Martí and another Maceo will be born and I only ask to be able to contemplate before I die”.
Recently, Frías had announced on his social networks the release of a new song with the title Change. “On September 16, one of the most sincere songs I have been able to write will be released,” he warned then. “I know that many will feel identified with this song that came out of one of the most difficult moments of my life.”
In the images, a security employee can also be seen violently removing another man from the premises, while some people shout “Singao!”
Shortly thereafter, El Niño promoted the concert this saturday as “the great farewell” before his imminent departure for a tour of Mexico. In the previous images of the theme Changewhich he spread on the internet, you can see photos of old men in the bones and in an evident situation of misery, at the same time that Frías sings: “My life needs a change now. I’m going to walk up the mess”.
However, when several Internet users asked him if he planned to emigrate from the island, he denied it: “I have no plans to stay. I have lived abroad for years and the truth is that today I need it more here with my people, with my daughters, with my grandmother who raised me, with my mother who works by my side, with my musicians and my childhood friends, the truth is that there are fewer and fewer”.
The Casa de la Música in Centro Habana, like its counterpart in the Playa municipality, are places for dance music. In both places, the audience is made up of the Cuban public but also, to a large extent, of foreign tourists and people who practice prostitution. The tourism crisis has caused the presence of foreign visitors to plummet, while inflation and the rise in consumer prices have scared away many nationals.
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