Cuba’s Music 

Music means many different things to the Cuban people: for some, it’s tradition, and for others, rebellion; for some, it brings joy, and for others, sorrow; in some, it incites a nostalgia for an idealized past, and in others, a desperate cry for change. 

Cuban music comes in many forms. Big brass bands celebrate the Cuba of yesteryear with their highbrow sounds of horns and trumpets, while the lowbrow punto guajiro calls back the simplicity of country life with the trill of el güiro, tres, claves, and timbales. Other musical styles cater to the young with urban beats they dance and sing to, flaunting their beautiful bodies and restless spirits. Of course, the conga drums appear throughout all the various genres, integral to the Cuban sound. Imported from Africa, the conga patterns are a language of sorts, each calling forth its own Santería god. Dancers can fall under their spell and transform into mere shells that the deities, the orishas, embody for just a moment in the physical world. 

In Yaminalina, the title character says that two things never lack in Cuba, music and rum. Both are used to distract the people from their deep rooted hunger. But rather than leading to docility, music has instead proven to be an outlet for protest. This is due to the unique character of the Cuban people. They are a rare breed, the intellectual poor. The communists have always touted the literacy rate of Castro’s Cuba, which rounds up to 100%, and it’s universal medical system with the highest per capita doctor rate in the world. But such education levels have led to a culture of skepticism. Cubans actually question the status quo, even if they do so in whispers behind closed doors. Thus, although the educational system in the country has succeeded in many ways, it has failed to produce the loyalty to communism seen in today’s North Korea or even in the former Soviet Bloc. 

In the nineties, timba music arose as the protest of a lost generation. Yaminalina quotes several timba bands (Ng La Banda, Los Van Van, Charanga Habanera, and Manolín el Médico de la Salsa). On the surface, their songs are upbeat and festive, perfect for dancing and rejoicing, but dig deeper and the lyrics allude to a darker truth—corruption, racism, poverty, and prostitution, the ills of society that the revolution had supposedly ended. The messages are presented metaphorically, of course, a code that a literate people can decipher (and maybe sometimes invent when no such message is intended). 

Tourists who visit Havana are often overwhelmed by the music oozing out of every corner from radios, CD players, and street bands. Some music springs forth organically: a few friends gather, instruments appear, and they find the beats that move them. Some music is rehearsed, perfected,  and performed in theatres throughout the city or in the many bars and restaurants along Obispo Street. But you can’t get away from it if you try.

A tourist from California recalls seeing an old woman ambling along with her cane, one painful step at a time, on a Havana street. He thought, “Poor thing. She seems so frail.” As she rounded the corner, the woman responded to the beat of a guaracha song blasting through an open door. She began to dance like a believer healed at a church revival. Perhaps the Santo had been called by the beat, entering her body to dance in human form. That is the power of music. It has magic, something communism, with its atheistic logic, has always lacked.