Miami, United States. – Cuban singer and composer Daymé Arocena, recognized for her fusion of Afro -Cuban music with jazz, soul and Funk, talked with BBC Mundo On his career, racism in the music industry, his religion and his departure from Cuba.
“Leaving Cuba is like entering a time machine. Leaving the 60s and assembling directly in the present, ”said the artist, who since 2017 resides in Puerto Rico after a journey through Canada and other latitudes.
Arocena, born in Havana in 1992, grew in the Santos Suárez neighborhood and from an early age faced racism in its surroundings. “I was a very insecure girl. If I saw a group of people in my same block, I crossed the other sidewalk, ”he said. “It took me a lot to change that perception of me. One of the determining things in my life to transform those thoughts was to travel. By Europe, Oceania, Latin America and also some countries in Africa. My worldview, how I perceived, changed completely. ”
In his opinion, racism in Cuba is a structural problem. “Most of the July 11 protesters [de 2021] That today they are imprisoned are black people. Many white people who protested that day are in exile right now. There you see the way we are treated. ”
During the interview, he also addressed the impact of Yoruba religion on his music. “I don’t make them converge, they are interconnected. There is no way that I can separate one thing from the other. ” In addition, he criticized the satanization of santeria: “People give terror to show themselves as it is. You don’t imagine how many people I know, artists, musicians, influential people, who are as santeros as me and are afraid to talk about what they practice, ”he told the journalist who interviewed her.
On the Latin music industry, he said that he continues to exclude black artists. “When I finished singing in the Latin Grammy this year, a very close person tells me: ‘Daymé, don’t I know if it’s me, but you were the only black one who sang here?’ In my opinion, we were three blacks in a scenario that celebrates Latin music. The Latin industry nourishes us, but still does not create spaces for people like me. ”
Your last album, ALKEMIit reflects its artistic evolution and its relationship with Puerto Rico. “Puerto Rico made me understand me as a Caribbean, I didn’t know what that was. It helped me create very nice artistic and musical alliances. ” He explained that thanks to the island he learned to combine traditional genres with contemporary musical technology. “No matter how many times I stepped on Europe, I never understood electronic music. I didn’t see how I could combine it. I had to get to Puerto Rico, listen to Bad Bunny And how in your music uses the bomb, a local genre, to understand that these different worlds can be combined. ”
Finally, on his departure from Cuba, he confessed that he felt “cornered” by government censorship. “In Cuba you have no right to ask, you have no right to question or understand. I hit that wall, I got scared, felt cornered and left. ” The transition to live outside your country of origin has not been easy. “It is still a process of much learning, of great humility. Everything I thought I knew I have kept it in a pocket and I have been willing to learn from scratch, ”he said.
