Attitude is everything.

Salsa and "Buena Vista" from yesterday: Cuba's youth listens Reguetón. A musical import, the extremely rude and naughty - and in the thick gold chains, tattoos and slightly wild women held a large role.

 

Cuba without music for a moment, it is as if the heart suspended. Eben still sparkled neongrün the block of flats, from all windows penetrated laughter and music, fun, loud, kakofonisch. Then suddenly the electricity, all the lights are extinguished, and the gray block is motionless in the evening light. Silence. Alamar, Havana suburb concrete, mid-life seems to be frozen.

Inside the apartment block Yasser Vera sits in his bedroom and leaves cursing after the power returned, the computer again. It is already the third power outage on that day, and at every turn must Vera fear that sudden surges in the computer verschmoren. For the music scene in the suburbs would be a disaster.

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GEO Special No 1 / 2009

Cuba

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On a narrow chair squats bedroom Yasser Veras Angel Luis Aguiar, 20 years old, singer and student of English, blessed with the gentle eyes of Enrique Iglesias. He has a pink Schulheft on his knees and chews on a pen.

From bittersweet broken heart, he writes the text for a background chorus, perhaps not entirely honest with himself: "I saw you last night / another / but it did not hurt me." At the microphone next to the bed suggests Yoandri Hodelin, 26, auto mechanic, a lanky black muscle shirt, on an imaginary drum On. Aguiar and Hodelin called "Stiki & showy"; on their self-produced CD with sunglasses posing in front of the photo of an American sports car.

When the computer is doing, pushing Yasser Vera music blocks back and forth, fast as a Hütchen players. Here in the suburbs no one mentions him in his Christian in Alamar is awesome Vera Yasser El Alacrán "called" the Scorpion ", a tattoo on the left shoulder. His bedroom acts as a recording studio for bands from Alamar, his black computer program copied from Germany as a mixer. For 15 euros converted Alacrán El produced songs that become hits are. They are all the same genre: Reguetón.

"Buena Vista" ballads only in hotels

Ganz hears Reguetón Cuba: one half voluntarily and deafening loud, the other involuntary. Just over ten years, appeared the first plates in Santiago de Cuba, and since then the music distributed on Cuba as the Marabu-shrub, an invasive plant that is already half the island overgrown. When Cuba's youth has long been Reguetón salsa and timba as Leitmusik replaced. "Buena Vista" ballads are anyway only to hear in hotels.

Reguetón comes from Panama, in the 1970s, there emerged, as descendants of immigrants from Jamaica its reggae music with indigenous Latin rhythms melded. Since then, the "Reggaeton", as he in the English speaking world is called, pretty much all styles of music absorbed what it is on the American continent to double hear: relaxed basic beat of the Caribbean dancehall music, spoken vocals from U.S. hip-hop, winds melodic lines from the salsa of South America. This versaute gutter prose from the slums of San Juan, Puerto Rico.

In Cuba, the musical seeds fell on fertile ground. "Reguetón is danceable and has a simple rhythm and derbe texts," says ANIEL Abreu, producer of Reguetón-Stars "acento latino." The band presented their repertoire six years ago to completely Reguetón order, "because it was only what the audience wanted to hear." Salsa, dominated for two decades on the island, had totgelaufen believes Abreu: "Over the years salsa was always fine, always lyrical. Until a large portion of the audience, the lower classes, it is no longer again. Precisely because the Reguetón line. "

The democratization of the means of production is another reason for its success. It does not take much to make a hit record Reguetón: a computer, a few hours of electricity a day? and a willingness to adapt to something new venture. "Of course we are in Cuba, proud of our musical tradition," says Yasser Vera, the Scorpion, but he sounds annoyed. "Sometime it is also good times with the roots. The youth want something new. The youth wants to change." Change is a rude word in Cuba. Music has always had the potential to corrupt the young.

Reguetón needs underclass-Protzmann

The basement of the Gran Teatro in Havana Old Town: This picture is so not like the meeting of the Socialist Youth. The women in "Cabaret Nacional wear glittering tops, stilettos and Röckchen as short, as if there were only substance on clothes rationing card. Young men in white lightning t-shirts can generously call for beer and cola.

The club is the acid test for "Stiki & showy", which reguetoneros from Alamar. Who here, has the chance to play bigger stages. For this appearance, they have long saved, the hardest part is the clothes. Reguetón needs underclass-Protzmann: false gold chains and T-shirts with big logos, brand sneakers are required, and "showy" hopes that no one noticed that his phone is just a dummy.

But the two are not far: After two songs beckons they bored the audience from the stage. In Havana Club include big names, "Eddy K" or "Gente d 'Zona', for whose concerts converted up to 20 euro entrance fee. "Farándula" is the name of the itinerant caste of party-goers, with the money blessed young people who have relatives from abroad feeds are Fidel Castro and a good man can be: holidays from socialism, the middle of Cuba. The Reguetón in which it is usually only about sex, money and party, there is a perfect vehicle for escapism from private.

At home in Alamar seems to be for "Stiki & showy" nor an opportunity to offer. On a large unnamed resort is built in someone slip a lonely street lamp on a music facility. "Siberia" will be called the suburbs here. Population: more than 100,000. Cultural program: a cinema.

When dirty, the songs flow away

Once a month to organize the younger residents of Alamar therefore Reguetón Festival under the open sky. Until last is unclear whether the concert can take place. About the power to decide the delegate of the Revolutionary Committee, and he wants him only turn when the singer to undertake not to sing dirty songs. The texts are on Reguetón the hardest, says "showy". Just the reality of life to describe? as young Cuban authors for years fool? can bring trouble. "If you're too soft, you laugh from the audience. And if you're too direct, they switch you from the stream."

When the music but then begins to beat in a heartbeat to Wumm, and the syncopated snare drum to scheppert, fills up the space in minutes with children and young people from the apartment buildings. Half a dozen groups, is celebrated in the evening, but for "Stiki & showy" bursts, the hope, at least here in the district to create a breakthrough: The disc jockey is required from each group four EUR as a contribution for the financing of private music system. Too much for "Stiki & showy."

The mood at the neon-Arena in Alamar does not detract from this: Even after the first dance all the songs, and around midnight, the songs on the stage then dirty enough that the police anrückt. The party canceling the policemen but dare not. Celebrations in Cuba simply belongs to the inalienable fundamental rights.