to Orishas

Cuban MusicWebsite

the History of Cuban Music

Cuban Music: A Symbol of Identity

Cubanismo and Fidelismo

i. Fidelismo
In 1959, Fidel Castro and the second Cuban revolution came to pass. Its advent ushered a new era, not only for Cuba but for the United States and the rest of world as well. That a small nation of six million people (in 1959) could have such an undue influence in the future of the world is the result of the machinations of one of history's most charismatic leaders: Fidel Castro. There is no area of foreign policy in the last forty years in which Fidel Castro hasn't taken part as an instigator or active participant. Castro is the culmination of the anti-American sentiment that been had building up to detonation since the Americans "stole" Cuban victory and Cuban independence in 1898. But who is Fidel Castro? An evil genius for many and a redeemer to his many followers. He even cultivated an image as a new Christ figure in the beginning of the revolution. Fidel Castro ushered the era of "Fidelismo" in Cuba and forever changed the landscape of Cuban, and for that matter, world history.
Fidelismo is just what the name implies: a system that has its basis on the teachings, policies and beliefs of one man, Fidel Castro. Though he professed at one time to be a Marxist-Leninist communist, Fidel merely used those doctrines as the means to remain in power for over forty years. An implacable enemy of the United States, Fidel fomented revolution from Panama and Nicaragua to Angola to Vietnam, in short anywhere the Anti-American fight could be fought. That he managed to stay in power just a short 90 miles from the United States while creating such havoc in the civilized world is a measure of his abilities as a leader. "He had an enormous effect on the twentieth century. The numbers of people who owed their deaths to Fidel Castro are difficult to establish, his influence and power were so often so amorphous but at the same time so decisive; but when one simply tallies up the force of his influence in countries like Angola, Mozambique, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and even remote and forgotten places and situations like Zanzibar (not to mention the Cubans themselves killed and the more than one million Cubans exiled because of him), one has to come to the conclusion that he is personably responsible for the death of hundred of thousands of persons." Geyer 2001:407
Castro changed Cuba forever. He forced the Cuban upper and middle classes into exile. More than a million Cubans left the island and went mainly to the United States and particularly to Southern Florida. This had a profound impact on Cuba, as so many of its educated citizens left the country. Doctors, teachers and other
professional people were lost to the Castro regime and as a result the standard of living went down considerably. The opposite effect took place in Southern Florida, where the influx of such a population in effect created an economic and cultural renaissance. Soon the influence of the uprooted Cubans would be felt in many area, including that of Cuban music.

ii. The Diaspora
As the uprooted Cubans set out to build a new community in Southern Florida an interesting phenomena happened: the new Cuba they built was based on the Cuba of the fifties, with the modernity and amenities of American society added. I myself arrived in the United States when I was fourteen but never lived in Florida as my family settled in California. I did not travel to Miami until well into my thirties and was genuinely surprised to find a Cuba (in Miami) very similar to the one I remembered from my childhood. Sure it was a modern Cuba, with all the material gains of American society, but one could recognize the old Castilian and Sevillian attitudes and cultural traits from old Spain.
There is an anthropology book, an ethnology by J.A. Pitt-Rivers , "The People of the Sierra," which one should read if one wants to get to know the old Cuba, or
for that matter, the Cubans of Miami. I'm sure it applies to Spain and to many other Latin American societies as well, as a typical example of Spanish Culture. There are many cultural attitudes recognizable by me as "Cuban" which have their roots in the Andalucian mountains of Spain and in other regions as well, and we can find them in the community of Alcala de la Sierra described in Pitt-Rivers book. Here is an example from the book: "To enter into friendship with someone means putting oneself in a state of obligation. This obligation obliges one to meet his request, even if it involves a sacrifice in one's part. One must not, if one can help it, say "no" to a friend. On the other hand, accepting a service involves him into an obligation, which he must be ready to repay." Pitt-Rivers 1954:138. That is actually the Cuban definition of friendship as well.
The Cuban of Miami set out to build a new Cuba in the swamps of southern Florida. One with a definitely Cuban flavor but a very cosmopolitan attitude. In time Miami would be known as the "Capital of Latin America," instead of cities like Havana or Caracas or Mexico City. It would be a form of the United States, Cuban style, very digestible to the Latin American taste and its new sound would be called "salsa."
Salsa is translated literally as "sauce." A sauce is something used to flavor
food, to make it palatable, and it's a good analogy as salsa music is believed to bring flavor to life and thus make it palatable. Salsa was born in New York in the 60s, the offspring of Cuban and Puerto Rican son music and soon it was played all over the world. Salsa found its voice in among others, the incomparable Cuban singer Celia Cruz. Celia had been the singer of one of Cuba's premier orchestras "La Sonora Matancera," but now she would become the First Lady of Salsa. It would take a while, but by the late 1980s new sounds would be making their way out of Cuba, joining the salsa revolution.

 

iii. Cubanismo Revisited
After taking a tour of the Cuban soul though its history and its music, it is time again to return to "Cubanismo." We earlier defined "Cubanismo as "Cubaness," the essence of being Cuban. Now we are going to take a closer look at what it means to be Cuban and how Cuban music fits in the "Cubanismo" mold.
I suppose an argument could be made that just as Cubanismo is the essence of being Cuban, "Americanism" could be the essence of being American, or "Franconess," the essence of being French. But this is not really a viable idea as Americans or Frenchmen do not see themselves in that way. The evidence itself being that the terms do not really exist. Americans are a very diverse society and actually they rather see themselves in terms of their ethnicity. Thus we have Italian-American, Irish-Americans, African-Americans, Mexican-Americans, Cuban-Americans and on and on. The French, on the other hand, see themselves as Francois, as the great people of France and have a definite sense of national identity. What made Cubans different was the merging of two cultures, the Spanish and the African, and this is nowhere more evident than in Cuban music.
Thus Cuba is a land of two melting cultures. Catholicism intertwined with African religion giving birth to a new religion: Santeria, the cult of the Saints. Here the traditional Catholic saints merged with the African Orishas and a new vibrant religion is born. Same with the music. The son is considered to be the most perfect Cuban song form because its roughly a fifty-fifty mixture of Spanish and African elements. Other rhythms like rumba (more African), and guajira (more Spanish) do not have the same definition, allure or enchantment for the Cuban people than the son does.
Both the African and the Spanish are very emotional and musical people. In both cultures music is central and basic to the worshiping of their deities, it speaks right to their cultural soul. In Cuba the merging of these two very musical
cultures has created a new and viable phenomena: the Afro-Cuban culture. Fifty percent Spanish and fifty percent African which translates to a hundred percent Cuban! That is the essence of Cubanismo, the melting of the two old cultures into a new hybrid, in fact a very viable hybrid! That is the reason why Cuba, a country of barely ten million people, has been able to exert such an out of proportion influence over the world. Just like the Athens of antiquity, a very small city-state with new ideas changed the world, so Cuba's rhythms changed the way humans perceive reality. The world dances to a Cuban beat.

 

iiii. Putting it Together-

A Cubanismo of My Own


Writing this paper has been for me a journey of self discovery. I am thankful that my anthropological training allowed me to step outside my cultural limitations and see a little more of the picture than otherwise I might have seen. I went in search of the Cuban soul, one which I have felt throughout the years in our music, in our dances, in the poetry of Jose Marti, and I found it just where it had been all along: inside my own.
So, what is for me the meaning of being Cuban? Having lived in California since I was fourteen, you'd think it would have been easy to forget or to forge a totally
new identity, being so far from the Patria... It wasn't so for me, nor for any of the many Cubans I have met in California. In preparation for the writing of this project I attended several music festivals in Los Angeles over the course of the last two years and talked to many Cubans, asking about their music, checking on their values and attitudes. One thing came across with every Cuban to whom I talked, young or old, Cuban- or American-born: they were proud to be Cubans. Being Cuban, to them, is a way of life, even in a foreign land where they are outnumbered! And Cuban music, to every Cuban, was an inseparable manifestation of themselves, just part of what it means to be Cuban.
I also found the Santeria religion to be more prominent in Cuban lives than it had ever been in my own life. My parents, being Catholic in name but atheistic in practice, never subscribed to the Santeria cult or talked much about it. I found that this wasn't the case with most Cubans. They were all in one way or another involved with the Santeria religion and it was more of a factor in their lives than I had imagined. The Orishas, Chango and Babalu Alle were, in fact, a part of their every day life and ingrained in the way they look at the world.
I found this to be even more so in a extended trip to Florida in the nineties. I had written and recorded two political songs "Que Se Vaya Ya," (He's
Got To Go Now, of course referring to Fidel), and "Pa' Mi Cuba Me Voy," (I'm Going back To My Cuba). I went to Miami for three months to promote my music. My co-writer, Hector Pineda, was married into an old entertainment family, so I thought I was well-connected and off I went to Miami seek my fortune. After exhausting my few contacts I was fortunate to run into Evelio Perez, a singer and actor and distant relative of Jose Marti who actually became my agent in Miami. Through his contacts we made many appearances in local radio stations and also cable television stations promoting the music. It was for me a magical experience, my sojourn into the Miami entertainment world, and I got to know many of the people who had been legends in my youth. The Santeria religion was strong in these circles, as established as the Catholic religion of my youth. One time, when things were not going well for Evelio, I went with him when he desired to partake in a "despojo," or a cleansing. Though I did not get to see the ceremony, he told me that the priest had given him a bath while singing incantations and thus cleansed him of evil influences around him. Of course he had to give the priest a "gift," that for my way of seeing things, being a non-beliver, was nothing more than a fee. The "despojo" didn't really help Evelio as his fortunes went down while I was in Miami. First he lost his job as an actor in a troupe in one of the theaters, then
hr ran into all kind of financial difficulties. He was sure that someone had cast some sort of evil spell on him and was considering taking another "despojo" o "limpia" by the time I went back to California.
Beside my almost total ignorance of the extent of the Santeria religion, another surprise that came to light during my research was how important Cuban music was for each and every Cuban with whom I discussed the subject. Many of the Cubans with whom I talked knew well about the different artists and the history of the different genres of Cuban music. The subject was very important to them, more than I had even imagined. Many of the threads I followed in this project I owe to conversations with Cuban people who either pointed me to the right subject or the right book to find the answer. I even wrote a few more Cuban songs and even about one of the Orishas, Babalu Alle, which a jazz singer, Frances Tease, recorded this year and is out for general distribution. I wrote the lyrics in English, as Frances does not speak Spanish, and I think it's fitting that I finish this chapter by writing out the lyrics from Babalu Alle, a song inspired by my new awareness of being Cuban and the discovery of the Orishas in which so many of the Cuban people believe.

Babalu Alle
Words and music by
Xavier Calvera
Come and hear the song / Come and dance along
Can you feel the beat / Can you feel the heat
Babalu Alle
The Orishas they will come / If you dance along
Can you feel the beat / Can you feel the heat
Babalu Alle
Come and hear me, hear me, hear me sing my song
Come and share it baby, move your body along
The African God will smile in song
Babalu Alle
Come and feel it baby, come and feel the drums
Grab a shaker baby, come and shake along
The African God will smile in song
Babalu Alle
Tomorrow is too late
You gotta dance today
Can you feel the beat / Can you feel the heat
Babalu Alle
Baby you're alive
So we'll dance all night
Can you feel the beat / Can you feel the heat
Babalu Alle
Come and hear me, hear me, hear me sing my song
Come and share it baby, move your body along
The African God will smile in song
Babalu Alle
Come and feel it baby, come and feel the drums
Grab a shaker baby, come and shake along
The African God will smile in song
Babalu Alle
Babalu Alle, Babalu Alle
the African God will smile in song
Babalu Alle
Babalu Alle, Babalu Alle
the African God will smile in song
Babalu Alle
Come and hear me, hear me, hear me sing my song
Come and share it baby, move your body along
The African God will smile in song
Babalu Alle
Come and feel it baby, come and feel the drums
Grab a shaker baby, come and shake along
The African God will smile in song
Babalu Alle, Babalu Alle, Babalu Alle

(C)2001 Lord Tiger

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