The nonsense has gained so much ground, the hordes fall in such an insane way against artists or anyone that this week the musician Willy Chirino had to make a direct statement to explain matters that should not be explained anywhere in the world.
“It’s the last time I’m going to do it, I’m too old for these things” he said in a video published by Cubans around the World, with the title “Cuban singer-songwriter Willy Chirino tells what he spoke with the Castro-communist artist Michel Mirabal.”
Chirino, author of more than forty albums, and who, in addition, from exile established himself as one of the most recognized voices of Cuban music, wanted to clarify some points about his career, and especially in relation to the attitude he has maintained against the government of the Island and its ideology.
Everyone knows that, Chirino, like anyone else, would not have to explain his reasons if it were not for the fact that he felt the pressure of those who follow him on the networks after his encounter with an artist based in Cuba. He believes that those who criticize him are “Cubans paid by the Revolution who try to attack me from the right and other recalcitrants who do it with good will, and they work.”
The artist he spoke with was Michel Mirabal, a plastic artist who is exhibiting his work “The History Behind the Sheets” until September at the Kansas City Museum. Mirabal also from the networks had announced that on the 23rd he gave Chirino one of his peculiar works that are based on his personal interpretation of the Cuban flag.
According to Mirabal, in the 12 years that he has been visiting the United States, he always carried a piece with him in case he ran into the sonero, until finally, thanks to “very good friends, this coming and going of the work is over.” And he adds: “with all the respect it deserves, that with it comes all the love that your people profess for you, in addition to any difference of any kind.”
The meeting took place, according to Chirino, at the Flamingo Theater Bar, where he had attended to enjoy a concert by the Cuban performer Kelvis Ocha. “That’s when, before I went up to see the show, we decided that Michel Mirabal should give me the work.” “That’s what happened.”
Chirino like any person has the right to talk with whoever he pleases. It is not necessary that, being a public figure, you are forced to account at all times for who you receive and what you talk to that person, and if this happens it is nothing more than the result of political interests and radicalization.
I remember that anecdote Omara Portuondo meeting Olga Guillot in the Dominican Republic a few years ago. They were both half paralyzed; and they say that Omara, or both at the same time, had to wonder if they were not going to greet each other. And then they hugged and sang.
Chirino himself evoked again when in 1987 he met the Van Van in Panama. “We gave them a lesson in humanity,” he said, referring to the meeting, and “when we left we hugged each other, we even cried.” And he adds: “Here they finished me when they found out I did that. They crucified me.”
What Mirabal tells about the admiration that exists in Cuba for Willy Chirino is such. I have been listening to it for a long time, when as a child someone put his “San Zarabanda” (Saraband, 1985). Although, it was later, with the great record that it is Oxygen (1991), when his voice and his singing really, I think, was connected with the Cubans, who have not stopped following him since then. There isn’t a party I’ve been to that doesn’t play at least one of his songs.
There are few who reject Chirino’s work, and it is already a matter of feelings that keeps us united to his melodies and lyrics wherever one is. Some find in his stories the memory of an old love, of a time; others amplifying his themes have found a way to express on the Island what they cannot say from a loudspeaker. There are those who precisely avoid those topics that directly allude to politics.
I was at a party once in Cuba. A friend and fellow student had a birthday. He set the music for us by Chirino when the player brought out that “Our day (It’s already coming)”. My friend’s father, a good man with convictions, listened to him. He stood up and said very calmly: “Not that one.” We smiled at each other, because he is a teacher and he also has an impressive comic encore, but always thoughtful in those cases I saw how the subject was passed by. Then Chirino’s music continued to play for everyone.
There is a time that conditions people. There are circumstances, passions, ideas, concepts and fears. The work of an artist will be, as he wishes, indestructible.
