A voice to be heard

Leafing through a famous Cuba travel guide the other day, I came across a pretty shocking error.

"Here you will find the latest live reggae, rock and reggaeton (Cuban hip-hop)," it said of a particular venue.

All the trust I might have had in travel guidebooks vanished there and then. Not only is reggaeton nowhere to be found at the venue mentioned but, most importantly, reggaeton has absolutely nothing to do with hip-hop culture in Cuba.

If you don't believe me, tell a Cuban hip-hop artist that you identify them with reggaeton - but beware, you might be in for a lengthy tirade with no happy ending.

There's a major difference between rap and hip-hop. Rapping is the practice of speaking in rhyme and rhythm on top of a beat. Hip-hop is an entire cultural movement which like all cultural movements has a variety of ways of identifying and expressing itself. It includes, among others, a whole range of dance styles such as popping, locking or breakdance, the art of graffiti - think Banksy stencils and colourful murals, not scribbles on the back of bus seats - and a music genre that involves rapping or the spoken word.

Hip-hop is an attitude towards life, a set of social and cultural codes just as valid as any other while rapping is only one little crumb of this huge worldwide movement.

An Afroamerican hip-hop was fermented during the civil rights struggle and the first sign of its breakaway from other cultural forms was in 1979 with the "invention" of rap as we know it by the Sugarhill Gang.

Speaking on top of music had been done before but not through a whole song and with the rhyming and rhythm that characterises rap. What was a leisurely form of music quickly turned into a form of expression of the voices rarely heard in 1980s US society - African-American, speaking out about racial prejudice, poverty and hardships and other injustices of everyday life.

Spreading throughout the world as an alternative to mainstream culture for discriminated minorities, hip-hop was at the heart of France's anti-fascist uprisings in the Parisian suburbs in the 90s and noughties and became the voice of a stigmatised Islamic youth in the post-September 22 2001 world.

It was around the turn of the millennium that US hip-hop entered the mainstream with disastrous consequences. The most successful artists like Snoop Dogg and Dr Dre started making fortunes and displaying them in the flashiest ways they could come up with.

We still get that today when on MTV "hip-hop" programmes with their golden limousines, large wads of cash and hordes of half-naked young women waving their curves at the rappers, each other and the camera.

This so-called "hip-hop" has distanced itself so much from what hip-hop culture is truly about that those who saw this radical change happen don't consider this hip-hop anymore, labelling it rap music instead.

This is what reggaeton artists imitate and of course Cubans aren't known for doing things in half measures. If US rappers have misogynist lyrics, Cubans will do misogynist and a half. I heard these lyrics on the bus this morning: "Ay, qué bien se te ve/que no te gusta con dos/te gusta con tres" - "Ah, I can see it so well you don't like it with two/you like it with three, followed by: "Mami, ensename el pudin" - Baby show me the pudding."

Hip-hop culture was first heard of in Cuba in the late 1980s and interpreted as a trend.

Those that enjoyed listening to it without understanding the lyrics began wearing the baggy clothes that they saw on US rappers but there was no sign of open social criticism until recently.

If the state is socialist one would imagine that hip-hop artists would turn towards capitalism, right? Wrong. That's the reggaetoneros's job and, funnily enough, you'll hear the most materialist, misogynist reggaeton on state radio but very little hip-hop.

Cuban hip-hop militates against censorship, domestic violence, inequality, prostitution and generally what is seen as Cubans' loss of moral values since the 1990s.

It's true that Cuba suffered a shock when the Soviet Union, which provided Cuba with over 90 per cent of its trade at very advantageous rates, collapsed virtually overnight.

In came Cuba's dependency on tourism and foreign investment and, as a result, badly distributed wealth - a recipe for disaster. There was no other solution but to open up to the foreigners. Considering the risks, Cuba has done extremely well.

We still have a brilliant health system, free quality education up to postgrad level, almost free public transport, subsidised basic food and household products and an array of state funding institutions for cultural and intellectual activities.

But things are never black or white. No system is perfect and that's where Cuban hip-hop finds its voice.

Reggaeton can stick to vociferating hypersexual, hypermaterialist lyrics that sound not only completely surreal in contrast with what normal Cuban life is actually like but that also run counter to the revolution's egalitarian, highly progressive moral values.

That's fine, because nobody takes them too seriously. Chacal, reggaeton flavour of the month superstar, regularly gets chased out of venues by screaming female fans in a way not even the Backstreet Boys would have caused in their time.

These girls have boyfriends, sometimes husbands and children, and when the gig is over everyone goes home and life continues. Don't ask about life's struggles, or even less about racial equality - reggaeton stars are predominantly white or light-skinned and there are rarely any black women on their music videos.

When you go to La Madriguera - "The Den" - to listen to artists like Danay Suarez and Obsesion and, on the more critical front, Los Aldeanos and Escuadron Patriota, you will find a cross-section of young Cubans of all colours and backgrounds.

They are perfectly conscious of what the Cuban revolution has given them and they're proud of being its children. But they also have a well-formed, well-educated political opinion with its corresponding criticisms that they will be more than willing to debate.

The Asociacion Hermanos Saiz (AHS), in charge of promoting Cuban youth's alternative cultures, has loosened up their freedom of speech policy considerably over the last few years, because it's only realistic to keep in mind that social criticism can sometimes be constructive.

But there's still a way to go. Cuba's system could easily be the most human in the world and we need to keep supporting it but let's remember that everyone deserves a voice.

Reggaeton doesn't provide any positive cultural content for anyone. It's leisure music and should be appreciated as such. But hip-hop is a voice that should be listened to.

This article first appeared in the Cuba Solidarity Campaign quarterly CubaSi www.cuba-solidarity.org.uk