‘Use our platforms.’ At Gente de Zona Miami concert, artists speak out on Cuba
Cuban artists in Miami are increasingly using their platforms to raise awareness of the plight of Cubans on the island, as social media images surfaced Wednesday showing police using violence against demonstrators.
On Wednesday evening, hundreds of Miami residents waving Cuban flags attended an evening street concert featuring the Cuban reggaeton duo Gente de Zona, near the iconic Versailles restaurant on Calle Ocho. The group, along with several other artists, were featured in the protest anthem “Patria Y Vida” — Homeland and Life — a rap song that has helped place the group of all-Black Cuban artists in the spotlight of the recent uprisings on the island. The title, a play on Fidel Castro’s revolutionary slogan “Homeland or Death,” has become a motto for opponents of the government on the island.
“The song ‘Patria y Vida’ represents all of the realities explained in one song,” said Sonia Carcases, 57, who attended the Gente de Zona concert on Wednesday and held a white bedsheet that read in black letters “SOS CUBA.” “It’s what the Cuban people feel in one song.”
Miami Commissioner Manolo Reyes said he helped organize the street concert when he heard from one of the members of Gente de Zona, Alexander Delgado, that they wanted to meet with protesters in Miami.
“I don’t want their support to be diluted,” said Reyes, adding he felt it was important for artists to bring a message of hope and support for protesters on the island. “The movement in Cuba started with the San Isidro Movement, which was formed by musicians, painters, artists.”
The chorus of Patria y Vida has been ubiquitous in Miami since it was first released: printed on T-shirts and bumper stickers, blasted in cars and businesses. But with the attention on the protests in the island, it has become an anthem in solidarity protests throughout South Florida.
“It’s a song that is so real and so truthful that I think that’s what has worked,” said Yotuel, a member of the Havana-based hip-hop group Orishas who appears in Gente de Zona’s viral video of the song. The lyrics, which call for a change in the island’s communist regime that has been “locked in a domino game,” have sparked attacks from the Cuban government, which calls the song “unpatriotic.”
Some demonstrators told the Miami Herald they knew that for some Cubans in Miami, the concert did not strike the right tone for the moment in Cuba, where internet access has been widely shut down, over a hundred people are believed to be missing or detained, and the little information that has surfaced shows police using violence against protesters.
Still, several local politicians attended the concert, including state Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava and Miami Mayor Francis Suarez. Also among the artists on stage was Cuban rapper El Micha, who sang “Un Sueño (Cuba grita libertad)“ — A Dream (Cuba cries out for freedom) — a rap that is also critical of the Cuban government, including its response to the COVID-19 pandemic, lack of medicine and food shortages.
On Wednesday afternoon, the Cuban-American rapper known as Pitbull, published a two-minute video on Twitter asking for other high-profile Miamians, like Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, to get involved in the Cuban cause.
“We need to stand up, step up. But if you don’t understand what’s going on, you need to wake the f--- up,” said the rapper in the video. “To everybody in Cuba, keep the fight up.... You are the ones who will motivate the world, inspire the world so they see what it really means to live and die for freedom.”
Yotuel, the Orishas singer, told the Herald he believed his song becoming an anthem means the words correctly depict what Cubans feel. When Gente de Zona sang “Patria y Vida” on Wednesday, the crowd sang every word on cue, some with tears in their eyes. Miami Police Chief Art Acevedo was in the crowd and, caught in an emotional moment, embraced strangers.
“I think that what artists, or everyone, has to do, is use our platforms,” Yotuel said. “Let’s break all types of links with leaders, bury leaders like we buried ‘homeland or death’ and for each of us to be the leader of their own thing.”
This story was originally published July 14, 2021 at 9:35 PM.
