Havana Cuba. — For a long time, most Cuban musicians and singers, claiming that they were artists and not politicians, avoided criticizing the regime. But for a few years, it is in the musical field where anti-Castroism is most active.
First they were the villagers and silvito the free. then came homeland and lifethe success —with two Latin Grammy Awards and twelve million views on You Tube— by Yotuel, Descemer Bueno, Zone People, the funky and Maykel Ossorbo. After “la tiradera” against the dictatorship, they have been adding, with songs and their respective video clips, among others, El Micha, Osmani García, Real Beltrán, Marichal, Navy Pro, Daryelo Sánchez, Lenier and, more recently, Aimé Nuviola ( a duet with the Spanish singer-songwriter Melendi in Bread for Yolanda) and Dianelys Alfonso Cartaya, known to all as The goddess.
The pitcher is coming and going to the fountain so much that, paraphrasing that Castro slogan referring to the New Trovawe could affirm today that “the song is a weapon of the counterrevolution.”
The regime, always exaggerated in its intolerance, has unleashed a haemorrhage of rubbish made up of Raúl Torres and other candid sulacranes who intend to retaliate against anti-Castro songs and counteract them, in addition to the attacks against their interpreters by the official spokesmen Humberto López and Michel Torres Corona , the latter has even taken the trouble to seek the assistance of the musicologist Oni Acosta to make a top 10 of “the most ridiculous songs of the counterrevolution”.
But more than the regime’s reaction, the attitude of certain sectors of exile that criticize the performers of the anti-Castro songs, reproaching them for their vulgarity and their swear words and attributing to them, with the jealousy of despised lovers, the intention of appropriating the leading role in the anti-Castro struggle.
How meaningless! To continue with the fights and the divisions in the ranks of the opposition, just when the regime is drowning, not only because we are more to the right or to the left and we disagree on this or that, but also because a handful of songs do not agree with our tastes and we are irritated by the behavior of their interpreters.
These attacks have been particularly harsh, I would say ruthless, against La Diosa, for the version of the song Cuba firstperformed in a duet with Lenier.
Let’s accept that the quality of the video clip is poor, with that laughably beaked shark with a beard and an olive green cap, a crude imitation of Fidel Castro. But the music and the text denouncing the dictatorship are not bad. It’s the best thing The Goddess has ever done.
Those who criticize The Goddess now for considering her “rabble and vulgar” laughed at her when she sang The 40 pound papaya. Ah, but she lived in Cuba then and they didn’t see her as a competitor for the helm of anti-Castroism.
It is unfair to say that La Diosa has political aspirations. She only aspires to do what she does best: sing. And she is not opportunistic. She confronts the regime from Miami as she herself did when she was in Cuba, banned and ignored despite her popularity. I can attest to this because I was her neighbor. She lived on the corner of my house, in Parcelación Moderna, with her two children, her husband, and her elderly mother, who died for lack of medicines and adequate medical care.
The Goddess did not hide to express her rejection of the regime and reply to the informers who tried to silence her. When the police went to the corner of Calzada de Managua and Novena, as happened on July 11, 2021, the residents of the area wondered if the repressors were coming for her or for me.
I can assure you that The Goddess may be impulsive, loud and foul-mouthed, but she is a woman with good feelings. She helped many sick and needy people with medicine, food, clothing and money, and gave many children toys.
If, as soon as it happened, The Goddess had been imprisoned, like Maykel Osorbo or Luis Manuel Otero, today no one would attack her and many would tear their clothes in solidarity with her. Because for those of us who oppose the regime inside Cuba, being behind bars is the only thing that makes us trustworthy and grants us immunity from reproach and criticism.
I understand that The Goddess has lost her temper — she, who loses it so easily and exploits herself — in front of the demanding, exquisite and refined beings who attack her basely, mock her for finding her rabble and vulgar and criticize her for considering that He charges more than Elton John for his concerts.
I make it clear that if I touch on this topic it is not because The Goddess is my friend, which she is not. Nor because —Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin free me from it!— I like the urban genre, which is what most of the interpreters of anti-Castro songs do. Nothing of that. It’s just that I’m bothered by so much stupid quarrel and waste of energy at times when the unity of those who oppose the dictatorship is most necessary.
The songs of anti-Castroism, it is already known, are not going to overthrow the dictatorship. But if, regardless of their quality, they cause discomfort and itching to the bosses, they are welcome. If we like them well, and if not, well too: it’s enough that we don’t listen to them.
OPINION ARTICLE
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