The island nation's heroic music struggles to be heard in a cacophony of rock, reggaeton, and politics...
Oscar Muñoz, photographed with his family on a highway near his hometown of Santa Clara, is the lead singer of Los Reyes '73 (SEE BELOW), once one of the top bands in Cuba. Many of the original band members have left the country, but the group carries on with new members.
Can Music Save Cuba? @TIME by Nathan Thornburgh / Havana Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2008
Oscar sees his current band's mission as simple: defending the Cuban sound. In 10 to 15 years, adds the bandleader Jesús, there won't be any Cuban music left on the island. It will all be in foreign countries, stagnant nostalgia acts like the kind that spun off from the Buena Vista Social Club album. That seems a dire prediction, but a Thursday night in Havana makes you wonder how Cuban music will survive. On Avenue G, the roqueros gather to get high and watch rock videos on makeshift outdoor screens. On the Malecón in front of a gas station, a band called Aria thrashes out garage rock for a small crowd outside while upstairs at the Jazz Café a saxophone player named César López heats up the stage with squealing Ornette Coleman riffs. More ominous to the salseros is the Riviera, Meyer Lansky's citadel to Vegas chic in Havana. The Cuban-music venue inside is shuttered, but in the front bar, there's house music mmph-ing loudly, and there's a line of wealthy young Cubans waiting to get inside--girls in high heels and pert dresses, guys with Kanye West shades and perfectly pressed wide collars. These smart-set Habaneros are called Mickeys because, people like to say, they live in a cartoon world....
SIGUE AQUÍ
