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.