Art and Literature Las Krudas: Those Quasi-Paradigmatic Black Cuban Rappers María I. Faguaga Iglesias Anthropologist and historian Havana, Cuba

Against evil we continue, unsubmissive, on our tive militancy on behalf of sexual diversity, way and their blackness a formidable stronghold respecting each land not just where we were of struggle for equality in our ethno-racial born… diversity. against the system’s power I rebel, Odaymara Cuesta and Olivia (Pelusa) against the lack of life I rebel, Prendes are officially known asLas Krudas against all injustice I rebel, Cubensi or, to their serious followers and fans, I rebel, I rebel!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! just Las Krudas, nothing more, because they Olivia Prendes, “I Rebel” have become quasi-paradigmatic exponents Krudas Cubensi of Cuban hip-hop culture. Creators of a de- liciously digestible art that delights the senses Emergence on the scene of those who advocate for the respectful and inclusive acknowledgment of diversity. They They are a captivating combination of are cultivators of a useful art for those of our most obstinately Cuban east and west. us who support the need for horizontality in Two women who harmonize their differences all spaces where human life unfolds; of an ef- to show us that it is possible for diversity to ficient art for those who do not yet have that be lived and expressed as wealth. Two Cuban degree of consciousness, but are prepared to women for whom this island’s physical space, listen carefully to alternative discussions of which in not a few metaphors written by its the matter. greatest poets—one white, the other black— insists on repeating itself or, like a cork, float- Opening other doors ing. Yes, Cuba got too small for them and they emigrated, just like so many of their female Leaving one’s homeland does not neces- compatriots throughout history did, once sarily and irremediably mean forgetting it; they were allowed to on their own. Two black, one can need it more from a distance. Thus, Cuban, female artists who turned the nature national and local identity is established in of their sex into a stage for freedom. They the migrant subject’s multiple identities. He have made their lives as women a form of ac- or she may have it close at hand; it may also

50 ISLAS Relections on the Race Problem in Cuba

Las Krudas

ISLAS 51 contain a great deal of the place of origin, the planned interview turns into a friendly even at a geographic distance. chat by black Cuban women who can identify Pelusa has experience with this; she is the with each other on certain, essential points of woman from Guantanamo who is now experi- their existence. Finally, the roles get reversed, encing her second, great migration: one that and Pelusa assumes that the interviewer has for centuries has taken Cubans to its neighbor become the interviewee: all three agree. That to the north, to the United States that Martí was the beginning of a night during which described to us as “disheveled and brutal,” they momentarily decided to leave aside words where so many of us find a place and accep- and move their bodies: they would go out and tance, friends and family, community, hope for dance, by way of a goodbye. economic improvement, and other kinds of personal fulfillment. Breaking molds Odaymara’s interventions are practical and resolute: “If they won’t open the door to In breaking the molds of a patriarchal me in my own home, then I’ll go knocking on and machista society not devoid of misogyny, others.” This is an affirmation that invokes us these and other young women erupted on the “to win out over difficulty,”1 like in the old island’s ninety year-old music scene not to and contemporary spirituals of our grand- bemoan their suffering or cloy peoples’ ears mothers, mothers, of our own, and those of with melodious tones, or to request conde- our daughters. When they understood that scendence, or seduce them with their bodies’ too many doors were closed to them in their rhythmic and sensual movements. homeland, that that gig stilt walking in the These young, female exponents of hip- capital’s historic district was over for them, hop culture—rappers—as they are known, that Cuban rap was losing its countercultural, mostly black and from marginalized neighbor- “revolutionary and sharp” edge, that it was hoods, almost all lack university or academic dying “because it didn’t sell” (Olivia), they training. They arrived on the scene to unplug took it upon themselves to persist in their re- ears and stimulate neurons, by singing about sistance, and try to resist other ways, too. the truth of Cuban women forced to remain in Yet, they, once in a while, like so many their subalternity. This a truth— denied, hid- other emigrants, go back home. We find our- den, distorted—that political and academic selves here, at the port, in the popular and speeches had made commonplace till then, but populous San Isidro neighborhood of Ha- that all the State actions and governmental so- vana that is the birthplace of black Cuban cial organizations had not eliminated. artists of worth and renown. It is the night They spoke to us about their frustra- before their departure to their new and dis- tions and desires; about anti-black, racial tant home. They are tense, nervous, want to discrimination as a palpable reality in today’s extend their stay, and make the most, when Cuban society; about how healthy machismo possible, of their last Havana night—their was throughout their society and about its last night in Cuba. They had agreed to the manifestations by creators of the very same interview; they, themselves, set the date, time musical genre, and in their very own cultural and place. The clock was ticking. After presen- and racial space. They unabashedly faced the tations of and introductions to each of them, reality of prostitution and spoke of single

52 ISLAS motherhood; of their terrible lives in so many impediments to their fulfillment, and that of Relections on the Race Problem in Cuba crumbling tenement houses and hovels. They their kind. They publicly declared they were rapped about the limitless difficulties of their lesbians; highlighted the authenticity of the everyday lives; their pride for what they are, black beauty without allowing themselves to and spoke about the inspiration they had be trapped by socially forced attempts at whit- found in their Afro-religious practices for ening; used African batá drums for accompa- dealing with so much hardship, and commit- niment; and rebelled against mediocrity and ting themselves to the challenge of keeping up forced institutionalization, advocating for the struggle for equity. independence in keeping creative control over No other musicalized, social chronicle their work. They intellectually, emotionally has so shaken the island’s cultural panorama. and artistically grew, and knew themselves to Even if this musical style has not permeated be feminists, which they fearlessly proclaimed. our entire society, it has reached every corner They opened up to the world and began to of the island. receive from it exactly what they needed. They First, they created a scandal; then they learned to face accusations and distortions began to worry a bit. Soon music would be in- about the absoluteness of their positions. stitutionalized, as a counterattack on politi- In Olivia and Odaymara, everything cal culture. The rappers disoriented those who seems to point to the coherence of lives that spied on them. They did not use traditional seem aggressive, contradictory, chaotic…and political rhetoric, but were political—in strange to others, which is what those who their own way. They narrated how they were have publicly assumed their notorious differ- forced to keep living their lives and openly af- ences are called here by those who don’t always firming how they were discriminated against understand them. Thus, they are made polemi- because of it. They and their male, musical cal, despite the lucid and assured way in which counterparts were rebuking a society that they have assumed their social roles, and the was going through a revolution. Yet, these clarity of their solid positioning. This may be rappers, among them Odaymara and Olivia, the price that forces them to pay for breaking Las Krudas, revealed their open wounds as molds and freeing themselves from enduring, young black women condemned to marginal- malicious stereotypes. ized neighborhoods, all the while assuming a confident and prideful, Afro-inspired aesthetic Rap and Reggaeton: two languages; that included going natural with their hair. two worldviews contrasted in one nation What had happened with the promised oppor- tunities and equality? Where were they? What In exercising their most basic citizens’ were their limits? Why? The truths they spoke rights, Las Krudas refuse to allow themselves were as moving as the honesty and mix of pain to be alienated by the rhetoric of anyone and anger with which they spoke them. unaware of the realities through which they Las Krudas were part of the vanguard’s have lived, or still live. Wherever they go, they generational drive forward, and of counter- make their critical voices heard. One of their cultural resistance. Their rhetoric is not at all most recent texts says: “Dissident/Anywhere indulgent with hegemony, and proclaims with you find me/I am my own president.” They are sincerity the imposed misfortunes and social never indulgent with those in power or the sta-

ISLAS 53 tus quo. Their words are always judgmental, like raciality and musical accompaniment— and invariably question reality. They always it came to represent “an infallible weapon question the arbitrary nature of any kind of for defending the topic of race, gender, intransigent and outrageous established regu- class” and “greatly supported a great deal of lation, because they are convinced that it is the conscientious thinking of the (young) “time to change the very system.”2 generation at the time” (Olivia). These two, black, Cuban women show They acknowledge that despite their themselves to be absorbed in their earned cultural, social and political importance, freedoms, but concerned by the patriarchal “almost no one managed to make a living enslavement that other women endure. This with that music.” Once again, historical, despite the fact they are out in the world, operative machismo began to gain ground true to their essence, and actively participat- in the lyrics that accompanied a large part ing in its construction, as it emerges from the of Cuban music, even son and timba. This, age-old ruins of arbitrariness. It is a world together with the economy’s asymmetries, that has not progressed enough towards its made reggaeton attractive for many Cuban expansion and consolidation, but is trying artists; so many rappers gravitated towards to do so little by little. At this time, they its way of making and doing. They under- are leaving Cuba while concerned about the stand that reggaeton, which is controversial, pseudo-artistic propagation of models that “has economically saved various genera- restrict women’s roles in favor of traditional tions” (Odaymara). male sexuality. This is why they criticize the worst of reggaeton, whose lyrics and videos Women, youth, and using music as a way to denigrate women. approach generational problems: some of the In her analysis of what has happened topics in which they are interested in that genre in contemporary Cuba, Olivia comparatively states that “it is also the case Odaymara adds that this music’s exces- that hip-hop is being displaced by more sexu- sive dissemination in Cuba is closely linked to ally attractive genres, internationally.” What State centralization. In her dismay, she reiter- is precisely at play here is conscience versus ates that the most popular reggaeton lyrics in economics, plain and simple, she says, argu- Cuba are the worst; they are generally filled ing that this genre’s ability to draw the largest with vulgarity. The violence expressed in that amount of money also spreads “stupidity,” be- language is contradictory, for example, to the cause it is far more promoted when compared revolution’s literacy campaign. This is why to other musical genres. Odaymara clarifies that reggaeton “has served They arrive home and compare what is as an escape valve for the reality that this is happening artistically in 2000 with what a hypocritical society that continues to sell happened in the nineties. They cannot be women,” and that “this is a twist to any po- silent about this; they are alarmed by what litical rhetoric kept up until now.” The thing they see. The time of rap was a time for using is that those lyrics contain an “unmasking of words “to fight, to convince” (Odaymara), everything Cuban society is, in reality” and because “rap is protest.” With this focus and that is “maintained on our [feminine] bodies” motivation—mixing into its poetry topics (Olivia).

54 ISLAS The crystal clear sobriety of their rheto- It shows confidence upon affirming that “it is Relections on the Race Problem in Cuba ric is concomitant with the directness with up to young women to do something more which they approach each subject and offer constructive with reggeaton.” their arguments. Nothing seems foreign to Both of these artists seem intensely agi- them. It seems there is nothing they know that tated by the increased interest in whitening so is beyond their interest. They are always rig- present in younger generations that have been orous, but also measured. There is energy and purposely (mis)educated by the truly anti- strength in their words, no cruelty or bitter- black, racial stereotypes commonly projected ness, but conviction and confidence. They are in the national media. They are pained and ‘not down with’ coldness. Instead, they are all alarmed by the contradictory propagation about passion, although it seems a bit distant of those stereotypes, generated as patterns of in Odaymara’s performances. It is more ‘out behavior that should not exist in a sociopoliti- there’ in Olivia, who started out studying and cal regime of equality and benefits for tradi- practicing acting. tionally excluded population groups, among Their obstinate concern for social prob- which blacks have been counted since the vio- lems leads them to carefully examine Cuban lent, modern origins that colonialist Europe youth. Of this, Olivia says: “Conscientious imposed on America. Cuban music has educated a generation that wanted to be educated.” Running the risk of Gender as militancy generalizing, she adds, perhaps through a quick study, and from a very definite and com- As confessed lesbians, Odaymara and mitted position as a social subject speaking Olivia embody the construction of their gen- from a multiple identity: “The new generation der with naturalness, individual freedom and is escaping,” moving “towards metrosexuality, active political militancy. They did so to the desperate sex, and whitening.” degree it was possible in their own country, Notwithstanding, she considers that this and now do it worldwide. In order to not get attitude offers an efficiency that “unmasked trapped by the will of others, they have eco- reality for a generation aware of the fact that nomic autonomy, the only way to be totally it has wanted to question everything,” forcing responsible for their actions. For themselves, it to ask itself: “I? What will I achieve?” or “My they prefer being “banished, exiled, but never generation? What has so much sorrow gotten mistreated.”3 As one of them said, “if they it?” In an honest exercise of introspection— don’t want to open the door for me in my own one it may have already undergone, even on home, I’ll going knocking on other doors.” its own—it answers its own questions: what That’s exactly what they did. This al- we got was “pain, division, sorrow,” and does lowed them to come into contact with the not stop to think that such terrible results world of sexual diversity beyond the island’s were caused by factors outside their genera- shores. Ever since they established themselves tion. The generational challenge leads it to outside of Cuba, they split their time between want “to see a reappropriation of that rheto- musical artistic creation, performance, plas- ric (that of male and female rappers who are tic arts, and the selling of their art, which their contemporaries, of “conscience” artists includes performances at diametrically differ- of any gender) by anyone with a conscience.” ent places, Internet sales, updating their daily

ISLAS 55 blog, and active participation in feminist and arbitrary laws—condemned a difference in sexual diversity forums. sexual and religious preference. It still con- They don’t believe that individual au- demns political difference and even discrep- tonomy and social integration are incompat- ancy. ible, and promote a need for establishing al- For those whose compatriots still think liances and achieving unity to make real any and express themselves in that fashion—in utopia. They consider it an advantage to have their homeland—whether or not they do it carefully seen and participated in the hetero- fraudulently or puritanically, Pelusa’s accen- geneity of the global, lesbian-feminist move- tuated, feminine appearance, and the notori- ment that reaches out to the poor, and are also ety of the tattoos on Odaymara’s black skin, negatively impressed by the position taken by can end up being violently transgressive of Latin American, lesbian feminists who oppose what others—in their ignorance—think the presence in their rank and file of trans- lesbianism is, and what they consider socially gendered people, or display classically elitist correct, tolerable and allowable. Yet, there tendencies. is nothing unusual about women who have They believe in the need, significance and already thought about all of this—parody- meaning of feminist leadership and equally ing another mulatto from Santiago who also confide in the use of new technologies that breaks molds, aesthetically. They are known allow real-time connections between the most for their consciousness, performance planning distant places on earth, making visible prob- and nature; these all work together because lems and conflicts that capture the interest of they are integral to the women they essentially Olivia and Odaymara. Technology operates as are now. Theirs is a continuity that through a source for their professional and civic ac- its more or less superficial discontinuities— tions, even if it often reduces the complexity regarding form more than content—has led of situations, issues, problems, facts and opin- them down a road that allows them to explore, ions. They are connected to the Afro-Caribbe- grow and improve artistically and humanly, an Network and likeminded, similar organi- and go from La Comarca del Rap [The Rap zations in Guatemala, El Salvador, Mexico, Zone] (1996) to creating Las Krudas Cubensi Puerto Rico, Haiti, Belize, Colombia and the (2000) as a professional trio currently operat- United States. They have taken their art and ing as a duo. civic actions to many of these countries. They Not posing, but rather with aesthetic re- also remain open to taking them wherever serve, Pelusa does not allow herself to be pho- they are invited. tographed the night of our chat, because she In their country, despite their many ad- does not have on sufficient makeup, and is not mirers and followers of any generation and adequately dressed to be recorded in images. gender affiliation, Las Krudas are seen as Yet, she helps out by offering iconographic polemical. This might be the price exacted support from Las Krudas’ personal archive, from them for showing themselves to be who which made her co-interviewee quite happy. and what they are, for revolutionarily trans- Odaymara goes into minutiae about gressing against a deceptive and small-minded the meaning of her many tattoos— patriarchal order. In its own time, and struc- “protections”— that ends up being consid- turally, this power—under the protection of ered the mystical, syncretic decoration of a

56 ISLAS voluminous body that has become a receptacle that “the Cuban women/doesn’t only know Relections on the Race Problem in Cuba for her most intimate beliefs. Signs of the Ori- how to move in bed,”4 mention this book with ental Ying and Yang, African cowries, sharks, pride, considering it an achievement for their elephants, hibiscus flowers, and others signs, black, Cuban, female compatriots—and for converge in perfect communion with build- them. As they are about to depart, they expect ings from geographic locations to which they more to come from these writers. They urge have been, and now form part of their affec- their visitor to prepare a book “about topics tive memory. Her body serves as an artistic having to do with us,” black, Cuban women, canvas, as a mural that wants to reveal parts since “there is so much to say! So much to say!” of her history and feelings towards those of After the lively chat, when we are say- us who are carefully looking. It is all a visual ing goodbye, we arranged for a next meeting, homage to the memory of the multiplicity of soon; a virtual one. Anxious and insistent her inherited identities, and the incorpora- upon enjoying what is theirs, they go out to tion of others. enjoy their last night of play in Havana…till Odaymara and Olivia—Las Krudas— their next personal return to a country whose are women from this time; from other, earlier children are desperately awaiting for it to be ones; and those yet to come. Women who resist truly of and for all men and women. via the firm dynamism of their thought and actions; women in transit towards that sym- metrical future that will surprise us, that they and others—women and men—miraculously allow us to see now, at least in them, their rhetoric, and in their professional creation and civic militancy. They are women who are like barometers and clocks, announcers of the temperature of the future harmony of a time that will someday happen to us. They leave nothing to chance. Instead, they intervene by helping that chance become a reality; they pro- gram their words and deeds with geometrical precision, not succumbing to inertia. This is why the apprehension they can still inspire in some of their compatriots astonishes them. In their baggage, now ready to return to their chosen home, now goes an unfortunately unprecedented book about Cuba. It is titled Notes: Afrocubanas (2011) and is a compilation of 1-Odaymara, Olivia y Wanda. “Vamo a vencé.” CD Cubensi Hip Hop (2003). articles and essays by more than thirty black 2-Danay, Olivia y Odaymara. “Tiempos.” CD Pa’ Cuban writers from the end of the nineteenth mi gente (2009). till the present time. Las Krudas, who have 3-Olivia. “Desterradas.” CD Levántate (2011). emphatically rapped for all the men and wom- 4-Odaymara, Olivia y Wanda. “Madre natura.” en willing to hear them, clarifying for them CD Cubensi Hip Hop (2003).

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