I discovered something interesting about Cuban hip-hop. It, like hip hop movement in several other world circles of youth, drew it's influence from African-American artists in the late 1980s and the 1990s. However, this Cuban music also had the musical influences of salsa, son, timba and other Afro-Cuban melodical forms to add to its art and relevance to the Cuban youth.
Like its American brother, Cuban rap, at times, also serves a political function, as Sujatha Fernandes writes, giving a voice to voiceless black youth in a post revolution/"post-race" Cuba. But a major difference between our rap and theirs comes from the distinction between what is underground and what is commercial.
While "underground" implies a revolutionary tinge and "commercial" obviously emphasizes material gain and wealth, the cultural outsider to Cuban rap would be surprised at which form would be more meaningful to black Cubans. Cuban underground rap, Fernandes writes, is often more likely to fall into the fold of "revolutionary" art, that is, art that does not emphasize racial disparity - after all, Cuba is the only nation more "post-race" than the United States (my nose just grew 5 inches) - nor challenge the socialist government. On the other hand, in the midst of socialism and what some see as economic deprivation, Cuban commercial rap presses the need for poor black Cuban youth - typically composing the highest numbers of the unemployed - to hustle in order to make ends meet. There's no chance for conspicuous consumption, because as one rapper notes commercial and underground are all the same in Cuba because there is no market.
What a tangled web we weave...
Still reading.
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