Cuban Hip Hop artists visited the seventh Summit of the Americas this weekend hoping to change policies in their homeland that don’t allow them to express themselves freely.
David Escalona (a.k.a David D’Omni) made the trek from Cuba to Panama alongside his rap group Omnizonafranca, a Hip Hop collective consisting of six other rappers.
During their visit to the Central American country, Escalona spoke to The PanAm Post about the struggles rappers face within the communist country of Cuba.
“When you do Hip Hop in Cuba, you already know you won’t be able make a living from it,” Escalona said. “If someone does Hip Hop in Cuba, it’s because that person has something to say.”
For Escalona, even traveling to the Summit to discuss Hip Hop was risky. Rappers in his country have been marginalized and forced to perform secret shows in houses or small venues. Many of his peers have faced censorship and government persecution.
Still, Escalona and others crave the right to pursue their craft openly. After the Fidel Castro regime tampered with the traditional folk-music within the country, many Cubans have taken a liking to Hip Hop.
“I believe that freedom should be part of your being: one must be free first, and everything else comes after that,” he said. “Being free has consequences. To feel free has consequences. But that’s like a river. You might come across a rock, but you carry on past it.
“What we come across are natural obstacles, that we ought to view these, to a point, in a relaxed way,” Escalona continues. “Given that we live in a society, sometimes these natural obstacles can be censorship. Especially when we have a totalitarian government that controls the radio, the television, the economy. In that case, what’s left for the river is to evaporate and rain elsewhere. That’s what we’ve done.”
In December, reports surfaced shedding light on the United States’ botched attempt to spark anti-government sentiment towards the Cuban government by secretly infiltrating the country’s Hip Hop scene.
Big ups to Hip Hop Dx’s Christopher Harris. For once in a long time i finally get to read a real article. S/O’s to you my nigga forreal forreal!
I surf using a mobile device right now, which means Ima keep it brief, even though this issue is close to heart.
The CIA, a few dummy charities set up by US intelligence & the ones who rules Cuba before the revolution; colonialist, slave-trading nobility, bacardi & their likes + miami-based oc, have been pumping countlesd millions of dollars into a phony “opposition” movement, de facto terrorists (which has been proven in courts deemed fair by the whole world except USA & Israel), so many have been arrested for conspiracy to commit arson/murder & espionage, but as soon as a country that goes against the will of the white house & the ex-tyrants of cuba, these crimes is simply reported as “oppressing opposition”, as if a country well known for withstanding constant attacks, economic sanctions & vicious sabotages carried out by the world’s only superpower wouldnt have enemies. The wikileaks documents also mention that the US administration is aware of the lack of support the CIA-funded & armed dissident movement enjoys among the cubans. Theres opposition alright & the councils that rin
run cuba aint fuckin around with terrorists & spies, six decades of silent warfare with imperialism have taken its toll. But the people, dedicated communists & reformists, are prepared to defend their revolution; they know involvment by USA always leads to unspeakable misery for decades to come, like in all the countries theyve “liberated” to keep the federal funds flowing into the pockets of academia, lockheed martin & the other hidden hands, by whose grace the politicians stays in office, or leaves. ALBA is growing stronger, the dollar has lost its place as the preferred & universal currency in most of latin america. Even some domestic enterprises have stopped funding insurgents because the stability & social progress of Maduro’s Venezuela is preferrable to the militarist right-wing totalitarianism of US lap dog Colombia. Hiphop aint got shit to do with free market fundamentalism, Obama-approved definitions of democracy (by which an genocidal apartheid colony, where diplomacy & policy is dictated by race mysticism & sugar daddy america’s interests, where systematic terror bombings of refugee camps doesnt even get covered up anymore cause ame
cause the victims are simply vermin, is a nation that deserves support, just like the worlds least democratic country (in terms of human rights) in the world, saudi arabia. But Cuba, with a people that can get walk down to the american embassy or some pro-US rathole & get 5k $ just for signing up to be an.insurgent & get weapons for free from CIA & miami oc/terrorist lobby, is not ehen close to overthrowing their revolutionary leadership. They COULD. But they wont. Hiphop developed parallell to & by the same ideals as the black panther movement, which wasnt cute & vaguely humanistic, it was marxist at its core, paired with radical postcolonial theory & maoist guerrilla tactics. Racism is a built-in technique of stratification in capitalism, that thrives on hierarchies, there will be no justice as long as the changes make halt by the sacred private property. The cuban people is a brave one. Jaded & sick of the injustice brought on their country by Miami & all administrations, but they wont a
wont cave to the threats, temptation of dirty money or the lies of CIA-puppet dissidents.