Trans. Revista Transcultural de Música E-ISSN: 1697-0101 [email protected] Sociedad de Etnomusicología España Froelicher, Patrick "Somos Cubanos!" - timba cubana and the construction of national identity in Cuban popular music Trans. Revista Transcultural de Música, núm. 9, diciembre, 2005, p. 0 Sociedad de Etnomusicología Barcelona, España Available in: http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=82200903 How to cite Complete issue Scientific Information System More information about this article Network of Scientific Journals from Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal Journal's homepage in redalyc.org Non-profit academic project, developed under the open access initiative Somos Cubanos! Revista Transcultural de Música Transcultural Music Review #9 (2005) ISSN:1697-0101 “Somos Cubanos!“ – timba cubana and the construction of national identity in Cuban popular music Patrick Froelicher Abstract The complex processes that led to the emergence of salsa as an expression of a “Latin” identity for Spanish-speaking people in New York City constitute the background before which the Cuban timba discourse has to be seen. Timba, I argue, is the consequent continuation of the Cuban “anti-salsa-discourse” from the 1980s, which regarded salsa basically as a commercial label for Cuban music played by non-Cuban musicians. I interpret timba as an attempt by Cuban musicians to distinguish themselves from the international Salsa scene. This distinction is aspired by regular references to the contemporary changes in Cuban society after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Thus, the timba is a “child” of the socialist Cuban music landscape as well as a product of the rapidly changing Cuban society of the 1990s. I. “Nuestra cosa latina” : from rumba to salsa One of the most obstinately claimed views in the anti-American discourse of Cuban critiques is that the island Cuba was a mere source for neo-Colonial exploitation by US- companies until 1959. Without any doubt, the far-reaching economical and political penetration of large parts of South America and the Caribbean was also visible in the young field of the musical industry. As Cuba was an important trading partner for the USA since the 19th century, the dependency of the island nation on the large northern neighbour can be seen in the field of music as well. For despite the formal independence in 1902, Cuba was de facto politically as well as economically dominated by the big North American neighbour (Kopf 1998; Krakau 1968: 9-11). Until the so-called “triumph of the revolution” under Castro in 1959, Cuba remained the “most privileged clientele state of the USA in Latin America” (Zeuske 2000: 12). For US-American record companies, the common language proofed to be an important http://www.sibetrans.com/trans/trans9/froelicher.htm (1 of 53) [13/07/2007 9:16:12] Somos Cubanos! factor for the selling of discs in the Spanish-speaking regions. Recordings of Cuban music, produced either in the island or in the USA, were sold in other Spanish- speaking Caribbean countries such as Puerto Rico or the Dominican Republic after the end of World War One (Glasser 1995: 135-136). Even in the far more southern Colombia Cuban records could be bought, and listened to from the strong radio stations that broadcasted from Cuba (Waxer 2001: 62). After World War One, the tropical island nation soon became a favourite destination for US-American tourists. Especially after the implementation of the Prohibition in the USA, Cuba turned into a “tropical escape only hours from home in which to flout conventions” (Pérez Jr. 1999: 194). Music and dance played an important role in the construction of the image of this tropical paradise. It is certainly no coincidence that from around 1930 until 1959 waves of various Cuban popular music forms followed each other in the USA: from rumba and conga to mambo and cha-cha-chá, music and musicians from the island caused exaltation among North American listeners. But a large percentage of the musicians in the so-called “Cuban” groups were Puerto Rican, as Ruth Glasser observes (1995: 118). The most popular of them was for a long time probably Tito Puente (1923-2000). Puerto Rico had come under US-administration in 1898, and Puerto Ricans received the US-citizenship in 1917. This fact in combination with a grave economical crisis in Puerto Rico had led to a large-scale migration to the USA, especially to New York. In the “Gran Manzana” (“Big Apple”) a Spanish-speaking community developed in East Harlem, which came to be called “Spanish Harlem”, or simply “el barrio”, by its predominantly Puerto Rican inhabitants. These were soon called “Nuyoricans” by their compatriots in Puerto Rico. Among them were many musicians, professionals as well as amateurs (Glasser 1995: 50-51 & 72 ; Roberts 1999: 57). But whereas one wave of Cuban musical fashion followed the other for about thirty years, Puerto Rican musical genres as the plena or the danza were usually heard only in Spanish-speaking communities (Glasser 1995: 178-181). The diversity and heterogeneity of Cuban and other Caribbean and Latin American dance music genres were not easily accessible for a non-Spanish-speaking audience. Thus, the term “Latin” or ”Latino” was termed to denote the different styles, from Cuban rumbas and congas to Brazilian sambas or Dominican meringues. For non- Spanish-speaking listeners all people from Mexico and further down south as well as their cultural expressions fell into the category “Latin” (Pérez Jr. 1999; 214; Waxer 1994: 140). By the middle of the 1950s, the category “Latin” and certain musical forms and elements thus denoted firmly established in the US-American music market. Institutions as the Show Artists Corporation or the Mercury Artists Corporation had opened sections for "Latin musicians“ and practically all big record labels had signed contracts with "Latin musicians“, among them many Cubans. The “Latin fever”, thus the title of a recording of the group led by Jack Constanze, also infected non-Spanish- speaking US-musicians from different fields as Peggy Lee, Nat “King” Cole”, George Shearing, Charlie Parker, Franks Sinatra or Rosemary Clooney recorded either full http://www.sibetrans.com/trans/trans9/froelicher.htm (2 of 53) [13/07/2007 9:16:12] Somos Cubanos! “Latin” albums or at least single “Latin” songs (Pérez Jr. 1999: 212). The late 1940s and early 1950s witnessed the emergence of a “pan-Latin American” identity, a “Latin” or “Latino/Latina” identity. This was not tied to particular nation states, but evolved from the specific situation of people from different Latin American countries living in a US-society which often turned hostile towards them. For the emergence of this identity, music, and especially Cuban music, played a major role (Quintero Rivera 1998: 199). The development of this “Pan-Latino” identity among Latin American people in the USA can be seen as what Aparicio/Chávez-Silverman call “tropicalizations from below”, as a means of responding to the discrimination experienced from the “white” US-society:[1] a positive reinterpretation of the formerly negative image of the “Latino”.[2] After the “triumph of the revolution” in Cuba in 1959, the former “tropical paradise” soon turned into the “biggest enemy of the United States”, as President John F. Kennedy stated (Rondón 1980: 20). As Cuba disappeared from the political map of the US-audience, also the interest in Cuban music vanished after a short time. In the early 1960s, before the international success of salsa some ten years later, “Latin” music was heard nearly exclusively in the Spanish-speaking communities of New York and other US-American cities. The most obvious symptom for the decline of the interest was the closing down of the big “Latin” showrooms as the Palladium, where the large Big Bands of leaders as Tito Puente, Machito, Tito Rodríguez and countless other, less popular musicians had played during the 1940s and 50s (Manuel et. al. 1995: 72). Instead of the large ballroom orchestras, smaller ensembles entered the limelight, playing a mixture of “Latin” rhythms and US-Afro-American elements called “Latin boogaloo” or simply “bugalú” (Roberts 1999: 163). Just as the Latin rock of groups like the one led by Mexico-born guitar player Carlos Santana, the bugalú can be seen as a conscious recourseto the shared “African roots” of Caribbean and US-American musics.[3] This “reawakening of the African elements within Puerto Rican culture” (Lipsitz 1994: 80) had already started in the 1950s, when Rafael Cortijo and his singer Ismael Rivera had become successful with their conjunto-versions of plenas and bombas (Roberts 1999: 146). The emergence of informal jam sessions by mostly Puerto Rican percussion players in the parks of Spanish Harlem (Manuel 1994: 261), as well as the beginnings of the so called “Afro-Cuban” religion santería among Latinos in New York (Cornelius 2004: 446-447) also fell in this time. The “African roots” were also important for the appearance of salsa, the music most closely associated with a new “pan-Latino” identity and the “Latino” struggle for social equality. In the USA the 1960s were characterized by different political movements as the black Civil Rights Movement with its symbolic figures Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcom X but also with a certain amount of violence, represented by the “Black Panthers”. The “Latino” version of this militant group was called the “Young Lords”, an equally militant Puerto Rican group from New York (Lipsitz 1994: 79). The salsa developed under the same circumstances and at the same time as the bugalú,. It was certainly no coincidence that a large group of musicians from a Latin http://www.sibetrans.com/trans/trans9/froelicher.htm (3 of 53) [13/07/2007 9:16:12] Somos Cubanos! background with a distinct political conscience turned to a music that was considered to hail from an enemy country by the white US-establishment.