FELIX CONTRERAS, HOST:
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(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD #1: (Chanting) Patria unida, patria unida.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Chanting) Abajo la dictadura, abajo los Castro.
CONTRERAS: It has been described as the largest and most significant demonstration in Cuba in recent decades. On July 11, thousands of Cuban citizens took to the streets across the island to protest their frustrations with the Cuban government over things like food and medicine shortages, as well as the country's response, or lack of, to the COVID pandemic. There were sympathy demonstrations in various locations off the island as the Cuban diaspora and their sympathizers rallied in support of the Cuban people.
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD #2: (Chanting) Nosotros también.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Chanting) (Inaudible) están en la calle.
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD #2: (Chanting) Nosotros también.
CONTRERAS: Here in Washington, D.C., on a recent rainy Saturday afternoon, hundreds of demonstrators gathered in front of the White House for a rally. In the demonstrations on and off the island, there were cries of libertad and also patria y vida, our homeland and life, a slogan-worthy phrase that is actually the title of a song.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PATRIA Y VIDA")
DESCEMER BUENO, GENTE DE ZONA, YOTUEL: (Chanting) Patria y vida, patria y vida.
YOTUEL: (Singing) Sesenta años trancado el dominó.
CONTRERAS: From NPR Music, this is ALT.LATINO. I'm Felix Contreras.
ANAMARIA SAYRE, BYLINE: And I'm Anamaria Sayre. And this week, we're going to spend some time talking about Cuba - specifically, the song "Patria y Vida," a track that some say contains the most strident lyrics ever challenging the Cuban Communist Party's six-decade rule of the island nation. So here's what we're going to do. We've got a translation of the lyrics of the song for you provided by Cuban American musician Lilly Blanco. We're going to take a deep dive into this translation to help us decipher some of the cultural and historical references hidden within these lyrics. And we're going to hear from a Cuban independent journalist about the latest of what's happening on the ground in Cuba. Then we're going to hear from a Howard University professor about the surprisingly short history of Cuban musicians taking on their government in song. Finally, we published a digital piece about this song, and we want to address some of the internet chatter we've heard around that, questioning who really may be behind the demonstrations and the song itself. Lots to get into this week, so let's get right to it.
CONTRERAS: "Patria y Vida," homeland and life - it's a bold play on patria o muerte, a slogan that was born with the Cuban Revolution six decades ago, when Fidel Castro and other leaders asked the Cuban people to declare a new Cuba or die trying. The track was produced back in February by five Black Cuban musicians - Yotuel Romero, who was a member of the pioneering hip-hop band Orishas back in the late 1990s. He is also an actor, record producer and songwriter for other artists. Descemer Bueno is a vocalist and prolific composer, as well as a record producer who led the band Yerba Buena out of New York in the 1990s, returned to Cuba for a spell and only recently left Cuba for Miami. And Alexander Delgado and Randy Malcom, a duo that make up the very popular reggaeton band, Gente De Zona. All four artists currently live in exile. The track also includes two musicians who are still in Havana - rappers Maykel Castillo, also known as Maykel Osboro, and Eliecer "el Funky" Márquez. The song was released in February, was making its way around the diaspora, and then the demonstrations put the song, in its chant-like chorus, front and center. As I record this, it has over 7 million views on YouTube. Earlier this week, ALT.LATINO published a translation of the song's incendiary lyrics with the help of Miami-based musician Lilly Blanco, who also gave Ana some of the cultural and historical context of the song.
LILLY BLANCO: My name is Lilly Blanco. I'm a singer-songwriter from Miami, Fla. I was born and raised here. My parents are Cuban exiles. They left Cuba in the early '60s. And basically, since we were born, we've been taught and it's been ingrained in our souls the fight for liberty for Cuba, and we've been aware our whole lives of the atrocities. Throughout the years, I've been involved in some human rights activism, and I'm happy to be here with you today to talk about the phenomenon of this song and of this movement, really. First thing I want to say is I want to give praise and honor to the folks who I think are most responsible for
BLANCO: creating this movement and inciting this movement, which are the artists in Cuba, the academics, the people in the arts who actually really have been consistent with their messages and trying to create awareness around the world.
SAYRE: When speaking about these artists as heroes in Cuba, in what's going on, you said consistent. What does that mean to you? Artists have consistently been resistant in Cuba, have been people who are carrying that resistance. What does that mean?
BLANCO: Yeah, they've labeled the dissidents. They're the ones who have been wanting to put their words down and share with the world. They're the ones that have been put - have put their story into song. When you see the limitations that they have in their country and that they have figured out smartphones and they have figured out how to record and they have figured out how to put a concert online so that the world can pay to watch it, it's pretty fascinating, and it's inspiring, and it makes you feel like you need to join the cause. And they've been doing this consistently, year after year. They haven't been knocked down. They've done hunger strikes. They've been jailed. They've been beaten in the streets. And they keep coming back, saying, you're not going to push me. I've got things say, and the world needs to listen.
(SOUNDBITE OF YOTUEL SONG, “PATRIA Y VIDA”)
BLANCO: Country and life - they shouldn't have to lose their life to be in the country, and it's happening every day. People are starving. People are dying. It's a little bit conflicting, but it's exciting, you know? It's a lot of mixed feelings, all in one place.
SAYRE: Conflicting - why do you say conflicting?
BLANCO: Conflicting 'cause it's sad, 'cause the circumstances that have led us to this and this awareness - like anything else, I guess, you know? There's - takes a lot of suffering before people start to wake up. I get very excited - think, oh, my God, Cuba libre, you know? This is the moment. And then you see the videos. And it's just like, at what cost?
SAYRE: I think we see that in these lyrics. I've been looking through this wonderful translation that you did, and it's a rallying cry. And it's also very sad, no? Can you walk me through a little bit of some of what you think, as a whole, the song voices?
BLANCO: From the get-go, it's beautiful - the beginning of the song with that melody.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PATRIA Y VIDA")
GENTE DE ZONA: (Singing) Y eres tú mi canto de sirena, porque con tu voz se van mis penas, y este sentimiento ya está añejo. Tú me dueles tanto aunque estés lejos.
BLANCO: Comparing the voice of Cuba to a siren song is a really beautiful visual, you know? And they go right into inviting - they're not specific as to who. They're inviting you to see the reality. They're inviting you, inviting communism and whoever thinks that they've done this great thing with this island to come and check out the slums they live in and the world that they're living in and feel what the people are feeling. You know, a head of a circus, there's a guy with a - there's a marching band, no? And it's - there's a lot of fanfare and always has been in Cuba. The song has historical references. The song has the battle cry, of course. And it's interesting 'cause it wasn't until I started translating the song for you guys that I realized that there is no real chorus - that there is a chorus, but it's at the end, and it becomes kind of a chant or a mantra.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PATRIA Y VIDA")
DESCEMER BUENO, GENTE DE ZONA, YOTUEL: (Chanting) Patria y vida, patria y vida.
YOTUEL: (Singing) Sesenta años trancado el dominó.
BLANCO: But it's not the typical song that has a measure of ABAB chorus, you know, and that's powerful, too. That's powerful, too, because they've been successful with a song where you're kind of obligated to pay attention. And it's not a turnoff, and it doesn't turn you away - on the contrary. You feel empowered at the end of it. I think that that's the magic of that song. Yeah, it's a voice - a modern-day voice for the people. But if it was a bad song, it wouldn't work (laughter), you know? You have good songwriters put that thing together.
SAYRE: Where do you see, most visibly, the voice of what you're calling the Cubans of now? Where in the song are you like, this has a distinct feel to it that is something of this generation, of this moment?
BLANCO: That phrase - that verse where they talk about pomp and circumstance...
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PATRIA Y VIDA")
YOTUEL: (Rapping) Bombo y platillos a los quinientos de La Habana, mientras en casa las cazuelas ya no tienen jama. ¿Qué celebramos si la gente anda deprisa? Cambiando a Che Guevara y a Martí por la divisa...
BLANCO: They specifically allude to, you know, we're going to - we're having to trade Che Guevara and Martí for currency to be able to survive. Che Guevara and Martí is interesting. Cuba indoctrinated - this generation that wrote this was indoctrinated by an educational system that used Che Guevara as if he was a hero when he was an assassin and, at the same time, used the real solid reputation of a patriot, of José Martí, one of the greatest orders and poets of all time - they used him also in education. He was, like, what they used to show - you know, he was a poet, so all his quotes are magnificent. But the government didn't stand by any of them. That is impacting to me because I didn't live that. I didn't go to school where I had to wake up in the morning and go, you know, I'm going to be like a Che, seremos como el Che. These kids did. So to put that in the song, for me, it really identifies their voice for that time frame. It helps remind people that everything's perspective, you know? You want to go around wearing a Che shirt because you think that that's romantic. That's what you were sold. These people, they - they're sold that they're trying to trade that to be able to eat, to buy food, to get basic hygiene supplies (laughter), you know? And that, I think, is a stab at the government - a big one. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PATRIA Y VIDA")
YOTUEL: (Singing) Todo ha cambiado. Ya no es lo mismo. Entre tú y yo hay un abismo, publicidad de un paraíso en Varadero, mientras las madres lloran por sus hijos que se fueron. Se acabó.
BLANCO: This reference of Varadero, which is, like, the ultimate place - my parents, my grandparents - just the amount of times that we heard la playa Varadero, the beaches of Varadero. It's heaven.
SAYRE: Right.
BLANCO: So they've exploited that. The government of Cuba has exploited that. There's people that travel all around the world, and they come to Cuba, and they ride in a '57 Chevy that's in pristine condition, and they think that that's Cuba, and that's not Cuba. And so they address that. They address that, you know? You're flaunting your beaches. You're flaunting Varadero. And those - and by the way, the people cannot go to Varadero. They're not allowed there. The people of the country are not allowed there.
SAYRE: Going back a little bit to this line where they say, we are human, although we do not think alike. Let's not treat or hurt each other like animals. Do you think that that's speaking to the government or to the world?
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PATRIA Y VIDA")
YOTUEL: (Singing) Somos humanos, aunque no pensemos iguales. No nos tratemos ni dañemos como animales.
BLANCO: I think that it can apply to anything. But I think, specifically, it's speaking to the police that are on the street. I think - it's a call, I think, to officers to be on the right side of history because they're human too because this is over. Democracy's coming. Freedom's coming. Where do you want to stand on this? And it's a call to those people to have the courage to step up.
SAYRE: I wanted to quickly point you towards the lines, Anamel and Ramón, steady with their poetry, Omara Ruiz...
BLANCO: Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PATRIA Y VIDA")
MAYKEL OSORBO: (Singing) Anamely Ramos firme con su poesía, Omara Ruiz Urqiola dándonos aliento de vida.
BLANCO: Anamely Ramos is a poet, a writer, young girl who has been detained, harassed, not let out of her house because of what she puts in her writing. Other references that they make - Omara is a professor who wanted to create awareness about cancer - breast cancer. She is a patient of breast cancer. And she - on a campaign for breast cancer awareness, they arrested her. Her punishment - because this doesn't fit in people's heads when you really think about it - her punishment was to not give her the treatment that she needed. So that's who those folks are. And the folks who really started the entire movement in recent years, el movimiento San Isidro...
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PATRIA Y VIDA")
OSORBO: (Singing) El mundo está consciente de que el movimiento San Isidro continúa, puesto.
BLANCO: ...which is a group of artists, intellects, academics, journalists, who have all sort of tried to join forces since 2018 to be able to express themselves because they weren't originally protesting anything more specific than artistic expression.
SAYRE: What about this line? And this is one of the ones I've been most curious about. You five nine, me double two, 60 years of stalemate domino.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PATRIA Y VIDA")
YOTUEL: (Singing) Se acabó, tú cinco nueve, yo doble dos. Ya se acabó, sesenta años trancado el dominó.
BLANCO: In Cuba, one of the biggest pastimes other than baseball back in the day is playing dominoes. It's a big Cuban thing. It's actually big in Latin America. But in Cuba, the amount of the titles go to double nines. There's a lot of places in the world where they only go to six-six, so there's a issue of reference that some people may not get. But in Cuba, they go to nine. So - and at the end of a domino game, the only thing that ends the game is either you've used all your pieces - you've matched all your pieces as you've played - or nobody has a piece that matches the numbers that are left on the board. When that happens, el juego se trancó - a stalemate. The game is over. The game is done. There's no steps that we can take to further this thing.
So when they say, (singing) ya se acabó, tú cinco nueve, yo doble dos, what they're saying is, it's over. You have a five-nine. You have the tile with the five-nine, alluding to 1959 when Fidel Castro and his people came and took over. I have two-two, alluding to a double two that doesn't match anything else on the board. And that's it. And I - I've never seen this mentioned. But my guess, it's alluding to 2022 and when we're going to see a real free Cuba. It's our moment. Yours was a five-nine. Ours is the two-two. The game is over.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PATRIA Y VIDA")
YOTUEL: (Singing) Ya se acabó, tú cinco nueve, yo doble dos. Ya se acabó, sesenta años trancado el dominó. Ya se acabó.
SAYRE: So the lyrics as they are mean a lot to Cubans when they hear them. What do you think is the implication of this song or the success of this song on a global scale for people who are listening to it who can't necessarily identify all of the references or things like that? What do you think is the goal there?
BLANCO: I think the goal is more of empowering the voice of the Cuban people whether they're in or outside of the island because there's Cuban people all over the world. I don't know. For me, it gives me a sense of, like, OK, I don't know who these people are that were raised in that country. I was born and raised in the United States. But the thread - that connection is tight. And that song is a song we can all sing.
(SOUNDBITE OF YOTUEL, GENTE DE ZONA AND DESCEMER BUENO SONG, "PATRIA Y VIDA")
CONTRERAS: You are listening to ALT.LATINO from NPR Music. I'm Felix Contreras. For many people, Cuba is synonymous with music. And in the earliest days of the revolution, Fidel Castro and his new government used that to their advantage.
AISHA CORT: The Cuban revolutionary government has always understood the power of the arts.
CONTRERAS: Dr. Aisha Cort is an Afro-Cuban woman who is a lecturer at Howard University and also studies cultural production in contemporary Cuba.
CORT: Music, visual arts, literature, film - all cultural expression is a mode of narration. It's a way to talk about your story, who you are, where you're at. And for Cuban artists, it's been a way to explore how they navigate the realities of Cuban revolutionary life.
CONTRERAS: Dr. Cort says in the 1960s, musicians sang the praises not just of the revolution but also its leaders. This track is called "Hasta Que Llegó Fidel" - or "Until Fidel Arrived" - by the vocalist Carlos Puebla. It was recorded in 1961.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HASTA QUE LLEGO FIDEL")
CARLOS PUEBLA: (Singing) Lo mismo pasaba en Cuba hasta que llegó Fidel.
CORT: What you see in the '70s, the Nueva Trova cubana, when you have main artists like Silvio Rodríguez, his album "Días Y Flores" from 1975 - you know it. Everybody knows it, right? "Playa Girón" is about the Bay of Pigs invasion.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PLAYA GIRÓN")
SILVIO RODRIGUEZ: (Singing) Compañeros de historia, tomando en cuenta lo implacable que debe ser la verdad...
CORT: The '90s, there's an explosion of hip-hop.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "A LO CUBANO")
ORISHAS: (Rapping) A lo cubano, botella de ron, tabaco habano.
CONTRERAS: The collapse of the Soviet Union and their financial support of Cuba coincided with the arrival of hip-hop on the island. And soon, Black Cuban hip-hop artists were using metaphor and innuendo in their flow to express frustration of the so-called special period of Cuban history. One of those bands that rose above the fray and attracted international attention was Orishas, which featured a very young Yotuel Romero.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "A LO CUBANO")
ORISHAS: (Rapping) Aquí mira, voy a seguir. Yo represento ron, mulata, Cuba hasta el fin. Mi Orishas como un imperio voy a construir. Yo te dejo mi tema como mi emblema, c'est fini. No no te vayas.
CONTRERAS: Dr. Cort says there is a lesson in all of this history, as well as what's going on in Cuba right now.
CORT: I think what's so great about this movement and these talks and these issues and these debates that we're having is that this is a song where Cuban voices are recognized, acknowledged and centered, right? Even as a Cuban American, it's not about us, right? This is a moment for Cuba, for Cubans. We can support, but this is a song that is about the reality on the island.
CONTRERAS: You are listening to ALT.LATINO. I'm Felix Contreras. Let's go back to that demonstration in Washington, D.C., for a moment.
(SOUNDBITE OF CROWD AMBIENCE)
CONTRERAS: While "Patria y Vida" was recorded by a younger group of musicians, it has had an intergenerational impact, according to some of the demonstrators here in D.C.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: La canción se hizo fuera de Cuba. ¿Por qué? - porque era imposible. Los dos artistas que ven en la canción y en el video en Cuba fue en secreto - escondido - porque le cuesta prisión, OK? La canción fuera de Cuba, se convirtió en un himno - un himno para la juventud. Y es lo contrario de lo que ofrecía Fidel Castro. Patria o muerte no quiere nadie en Cuba. Queremos patria y vida. Ese es el sentido de la canción. Por eso nos involucramos los más ancianos, los mas jóvenes, los más niños, todos.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Yes, it's practically saying homeland and life. And that's all Cubans want. Cuba wants freedom. They're tired of an oppressed system. They're tired of a dictatorship. And that is all they want - freedom. And I hope the U.S. hears us and the world knows what's happening in Cuba.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: Vida - it's not about the revolution before anymore because that doesn't resonate with the youth now. Vida means to live. And we support people. Nuestro cubano, somos apoyando. Whether you're here in D.C., whether you're from Miami, whether you're in Cuba, escúchame, mi gente. Estamos contigo.
CONTRERAS: And that cross-generational appeal is an unexpected comfort to one of the song's performers. During a Zoom interview from Miami, Descemer Bueno talked about how the song has become embraced as an important part of Cuban history.
DESCEMER BUENO: When they show the song to me, the songs have another name. The name was "Se Acabó." I hear one melody of the song with a lyric saying patria y vida. I understood that that's exactly the antithesis of the patria o muerte. That was a waking-up for all the Cubans. A lot of things changed from that - the title of the song - came out, and the people really embraced it.
CONTRERAS: This is a fast-moving story. Just as we were finishing producing this week's show, the White House announced strategic sanctions against members of the Cuban security forces for their aggressive reaction to the demonstrations, reportedly taking hundreds of demonstrators into custody. The Cuban government also reportedly shut down access to the internet and social media, which had been used for organizing protests. One week after the demonstrations, Lulu Garcia-Navarro from NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday spoke to Abraham Jiménez Enoa, an independent Cuban journalist who lives in Havana and is a columnist for The Washington Post. Now almost two weeks after the demonstration, we reached out to Jiménez Enoa again for another update and to get his response to the U.S. sanctions.
ABRAHAM JIMÉNEZ ENOA: Sí, lo leí hace un rato. Sí, es...
CONTRERAS: He says, "Yeah, I just read about it. I think that in one sense, it is a valid action. Every government is going to act in ways that are important for that country. But in reality, these types of actions and sanctions don't have anything to do with the Cuban people. They are actions by the U.S. - diplomatic actions that tell the world that we are watching what the Cuban government does. The Cuban government will ignore that. And it doesn't have much impact for the Cuban people." OK, now it's time to address a little controversy that has been brewing around the song and specifically the article we published about it. Here's Ana to explain.
SAYRE: OK, so a day before we were set to publish the show, we started getting a lot of feedback from people on social media mostly, alerting us to the potential that we were only clued into half of the story. Namely, people were questioning whether or not the song is an organic expression of frustration with the current situation on the island like we initially expected. Or is it somehow connected to a documented - we'll get to what that means in a minute - history of arts and culture on the island being influenced by clandestine U.S. government efforts to foment dissent against the Cuban government? So in this final segment of the show, we're going to try to address this.
Through further research, what we discovered is that there is a precedent for this historically across the globe and more recently in Cuba. In 2014, former ALT.LATINO host Jasmine Garsd reported via NPR that there was an Associated Press report that came out saying that the USAID secretly funded money to contractors to recruit, promote and set up concerts for young rappers in Cuba in order to help promote social change. The program took place from 2009 to 2011 and was reportedly ended. To get some on-the-ground insight about this claim, we turned back to Washington Post reporter Abraham Jiménez Enoa - who you heard from earlier - and asked him point blank, what are the chances "Patria Y Vida" is the product of a CIA-backed initiative?
JIMÉNEZ ENOA: No, no creo...
CONTRERAS: He also says that the song has become like a hymn for the Cuban people, for all the people who fight for change to the regime. The song has been censored in Cuba. And anyone associated with the song here in Cuba is now in prison. The two Cuban rappers and even a photographer who shot their part of the popular video - he's in prison for a year. The song has become so popular that if you are caught listening to it in your home, in your car or even at a party, they will throw you in prison. The song is completely censored by the government.
JIMÉNEZ ENOA: Está censurado completamente.
CONTRERAS: Wow.
To gain a better understanding of the history behind this kind of claim, we talked to Daniel Immerwahr.
SAYRE: He's a professor of history specializing in 20th century U.S. history within a global context at Northwestern University. Two years ago, he released a national bestselling book called "How To Hide An Empire," which tells the history of the United States overseas possessions and the true meaning of its empire. His short answer - he doesn't know. But he filled in a bit of history for us.
CONTRERAS: What is the likelihood that the song "Patria Y Vida," as well as the demonstrations that are taking place in Cuba, are the result of some kind of clandestine U.S. government interference or instigation?
DANIEL IMMERWAHR: Well, I don't know. But what I do know about U.S. history and the long history of U.S. sponsoring of culture and culture as a sort of weapon since 1945 - I'd say it's pretty low.
SAYRE: In short, professor Immerwahr doesn't buy the conspiracy. But as professors often do, he complicated the idea for us. The roles of power in these situations are a lot more complicated than what meets the eye.
IMMERWAHR: My usual response to conspiracy theory is not to say that's wrong because I couldn't imagine a powerful country would want to - you know, the United States would want to undermine Cuba. It's implausible because that's not usually the mechanism by which it works. Conspiracy theories often imagine a really direct relationship. So there is a puppet master. There is a puppet. And that's how power works. And in my experience, it's not that power doesn't operate. It's just it operates in a much more diffused kind of way so that there isn't a guy in a back room with a plan, you know, and a sort of classified document that if you found, it would blow the case wide open. That's not always how it works. And often, power is much vaguer than that. And that doesn't mean it's not serious. It is incredibly serious. And so the language, the genre that people use to express dissent from - you know, not just in Cuba but all kinds of countries that have been the enemies of the United States have been profoundly influenced by the idioms, the genres, the messages that emanate out of the United States. That is power working. It's just not a guy with a, like, secret slush funds who just, like, identified exactly the right rappers in order to, like, bring down the regime.
SAYRE: OK, so at this point, we decided to go straight to the source. We asked Descemer, one of the architects of the song - who you heard earlier - was the United States government involved in the song? Here's how that went down.
CONTRERAS: I'm going to ask you a question that has come up in some parts of social media. And that is the idea or the theory or the accusation that not only the demonstrations in Cuba but also the song is part of an effort by the United States to destabilize the government - un proyecto clandestino, OK?
BUENO: (Unintelligible) the people - I mean, that's also estrategic of the Cuban government - that has been...
CONTRERAS: And then at this point, the Zoom connection suddenly and inexplicably stopped. This was the last answer of a 15-minute interview. And there had been no problems with the connection from Miami before this. Now, I'm not looking under beds for spies or anything. But it did make me go hmm. After reconnecting, Descemer Bueno finished his answer.
BUENO: Let me tell you something. When we start with the idea of get together, participating in these songs together - like Yotuel Romero, me and Gente De Zona - nobody contact us. Nobody paid us a single penny for going to the studio. Actually, I record my own voice in my own studio in my house in Miami. I think that everybody do exactly the same because that was the more difficult time of the COVID in Miami, you know? Nobody getting money. Everybody was putting the heart in the song. Nobody contact us. Whatever things the Cuban regime is saying about this song, they're lying. From the really early beginning, they're saying that we are jineteros. Whatever they say - whatever the regime say about us, they lying. Whatever the regime say about the song, they're lying to the whole world, you know?
SAYRE: For the first time in a long time, relations between the U.S. and Cuban governments could be described as tense. Emotions and tensions are running high all around. And now a single song seems to be in the middle of a historic moment in the long and complicated story of the relations between the two countries.
CONTRERAS: This is an historic moment. There is no precedent for how the Cuban people have demonstrated their frustrations against their government and with the status quo. And so you can count on ALT.LATINO to continue to follow the developments on the island and the impact of arts and culture on this discourse. Be sure to check out our website at npr.org/alt.latino to view the "Patria Y Vida" video as well as other links related to this story. Our thanks this week to Lilly Blanco, Dr. Aisha Cort and Daniel Immerwahr and also to ALT.LATINO contributor Marisa Arbona-Ruiz for attending the White House rally and, as always, ALT.LATINO intern Reanna Cruz for everything she does. You have been listening to ALT.LATINO from NPR Music. I'm Felix Contreras.
SAYRE: And I'm Anamaria Sayre. Thank you for joining us for this ride of an episode. We appreciate you.
CONTRERAS: And we're going to hear the song in question. This is "Patria Y Vida."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PATRIA Y VIDA")
YOTUEL: (Singing) Y eres tú mi canto de sirena, porque con tu voz se van mis penas y este sentimiento ya está añejo. Tú me dueles tanto aunque estés lejos.
BUENO: (Singing) Hoy yo te invito a caminar por mis solares para demostrarte de que sirven tus ideales. Somos humanos, aunque no pensemos iguales. No nos tratemos ni dañemos como animales. Esta es mi forma de decírtelo. Llora mi pueblo, y siento yo su voz. Tú cinco nueve, yo doble dos, 60 años trancado el dominó, bombo y platillo a los quinientos de La Habana, mientras en casa en las cazuelas ya no tienen jama. ¿Qué celebramos si la gente anda deprisa? - cambiando al Che Guevara y a Martí por la divisa? Todo ha cambiado. Ya no es lo mismo. Entre tú y yo, hay un abismo, publicidad de un paraíso en Varadero mientras las madres lloran por sus hijos que se fueron.
GENTE DE ZONA AND YOTUEL: (Singing) Se acabó, tú cinco nueve, yo, doble dos. Ya se acabó, 60 años trancado el dominó. Mira. Se acabó, tú cinco nueve, yo doble dos. Ya se acabó, 60 años trancado el dominó.
BUENO: (Singing) Somos artistas. Somos sensibilidad, la historia verdadera, no la mal contada. Somos la dignidad de un pueblo entero pisoteada a punta de pistola y de palabras que aún son nada.
GENTE DE ZONA: (Singing) No más mentiras, mi pueblo pide libertad. No más doctrinas, ya no gritemos "patria o muerte" sino "patria y vida" y empezar a construir lo que soñamos, lo que destruyeron con sus manos. Que no siga corriendo la sangre por querer pensar diferente. ¿Quién le dijo que Cuba es de ustedes si mi Cuba es de toda mi gente?
GENTE DE ZONA AND YOTUEL: (Singing) Se acabó. Ya se venció tu tiempo. Se rompió el silencio. Ya se acabó. Ya se acabó la risa, y el llanto ya está corriendo. Se acabó. Y no tenemos miedo. Se acabó el engaño. Ya se acabó. Son 62 haciendo daño.
OSORBO: (Rapping) Allí vivimos con la incertidumbre del pasado plantados, quince amigos puestos listos para morirnos. Izamos la bandera todavía, la represión del régimen al día. Anamely Ramos firme con su poesía, Omara Ruiz Urquiola dándonos aliento de vida. Rompieron nuestra puerta. Violaron nuestro templo. Y el mundo está consciente de que el movimiento San Isidro continúa, puesto.
EL FUNKY: (Rapping) Seguimos en las mismas, la seguridad metiendo prisma. Esas cosas a mí como me indignan. Se acabó el enigma. Ya esa tu revolución maligna. Soy funky. Style aquí tienes mi firma. Ya ustedes están sobrando. Ya no les queda nada. Ya se van bajando. El pueblo se cansó de estar aguantando. Un nuevo amanecer estamos esperando.
GENTE DE ZONA AND YOTUEL: (Singing) Se acabó, tú cinco nueve, yo doble dos. Ya se acabó, 60 años trancado el dominó. Mira. Se acabó, tú cinco nueve, yo doble dos. Ya se acabó, 60 años trancado el dominó. Patria y vida, patria y vida, patria y vida, 60 años trancado el dominó.
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