Havana Cuba. – Most people who consider that cast songs have no musical value, regardless of whether people dance to them, associate this type of product with female denigration. There are cases of evident sexism and machismo such as Belted lady, mariconaby The Kings, and Fine, but filthyfrom Chocolate MC, for example.
“In this matter of delivery music, it is worth clarifying that women should not be degraded, perhaps showing another image of them in the video clips, not the macho and sexist one, because also, as times change, the mentality in that aspect must change. . “You can write music without offending or degrading,” reflects Marilianis, a young hotel worker interviewed by CubaNet.
“As a woman, sometimes it is difficult for me to listen to those songs in public and not feel bad or embarrassed, because I feel that it is dedicated to one and it is uncomfortable. Language makes the contagious rhythm fade and kills the art,” says Valeria Frómeta, another of the young women interviewed.
“It is a totally recreational genre, dedicated to generating money, not to reflecting or reflecting realities, although it should not be generalized. There is a lot of variety within the genre, although the history of the cast is completely evolving. The influence of Cuban music is noticeable, there is a very predominant base. Several of its exponents have a marginal history behind them, that is, they have not had access to many benefits,” says journalist Michel Hernández.
And he adds: “There is a silencing of him in society, even in the official media, as has always happened, it happened with timba, with reggaeton. These guys do not have a specialized critic who talks about their work, who promotes them or talks about the phenomenon, and given this they have found their way to disseminate their work independently.”
However, distribution as a genre can be analyzed from different social perspectives, as the reflection of a population sector that lives in most of the country and that does not have a better way of visibility and representation of its customs. Furthermore, as Cuban music, no one can separate the roots of the genre in the cultural history of the Island.
Regarding the contribution to the Cuban rhythms of the cast, the singer Orlenis comments: “Musically it does not give much, because it was created with elements of our music, but it has helped to open another door to the world for Cuban music and give joy to the heart of the Cubans.”
“I consider that the cast contributes a lot to Cuban culture. There are distributions and distributions, and the distribution songs must continue to be preserved for what they contribute to the culture and our idiosyncrasy,” says Marilianis.
Cuban delivery workers Fixty Ordara and Ja Rulay (Photo taken from their Instagram profile)
For the artist Jayby, “all music well made by a Cuban has a contribution to their culture; But it is good to feel that the Cuban has invented, has contributed to the seal of reggaeton of these times,” he says.
The value is also attributed to the fact that it represents a connection between young emigrants and residents on the Island: representatives of the latest generation of delivery drivers have gone to Florida, for example.
An example of this is the Cuban reggaeton duo Dany Ome & Kevincito 13, who arrived in Cuba to record a video clip with Yomil Hidalgo and are preparing a tour that includes the Island. Both artists went to the United States as children and are now returning. to their land to connect with the people who consume and saw the birth of the distribution.
“Distribution is a very rich expression in terms of generating money and the market has assimilated that very well, which is also why, contrary to what could be imagined 10 years ago, it is the main cultural exchange between Cuba and the United States, especially all between Miami and Havana. Despite the detractors it had, it has become the best expression of cultural exchange,” says Michel Hernández.
“The delivery drivers made people like me recognize themselves on the map of Cuba, that is, they took us into account. Now we have music that is ours, from the streets,” explains Darién, a young man who is self-employed and lives in one of the areas on the outskirts of Havana.
“The cast has artistic value because it is a ramification of Cuban music, an evolution in 2024. It also has value in how it has culturally reflected a part of Cuban society, of young people, where they are not interested in what they promote. speeches, but in another type of reality that is the survival of a changing country, and they have found their model of success in the delivery, as the delivery drivers once found in the Puerto Rican reggaeton players,” Hernández notes.
The Cuban delivery workers Kimiko and Yordy (Photo taken from their Instagram profile)
The cast is “stuck”
The influence of the genre on a musical level has set a trend to such an extent that in Peru it is one of the most consumed rhythms and urban artists from that country began to delve into it. The popularity is so great that experts fear that it will continue to eclipse other genres and become a massive phenomenon that infects musical exponents of salsa, merengue, ballads, pop, rock, and even traditional reggaeton.
“It has been accepted due to the rhythmic base and the democratization of technology. Everyone has access to programs that, if you are a good singer, give you the opportunity to promote your work, perhaps without the necessary quality. Furthermore, the cast is a genre that promotes dance and entertainment above all,” says Hernández.
Artists of the urban genre have left the rest of the music in Cuba in the background. The Lucas Awards, a project by director Orlando Cruzata who has spent decades analyzing video clips and music, constitute a gauge of public preference. In its “Most Popular Video” section, for some years now, reggaeton, and now more recently, the cast, have dominated the category.
The Cuban delivery workers Charly and Johayron (Photo taken from their Instagram profile)
Figures from the current industry such as Fixty Ordara and Ja Rulay, and the duo Charly and Johayron are positioned among the popularity winners in 2022. In the category, the experts who serve as the program’s jury have said, the artistic quality of the audiovisual product, but its acceptance among the people who represent the sole judge in that case.
“With the issue of the acceptance that the cast has had, I am a little concerned about the issue of musical taste, which I think has deteriorated in the market. There is a lot of light music due to the same needs that the world has, so much crisis, people consume it very quickly, so when this exists, many exponents appear and people receive this and maintain it as a pattern,” considers video clip director Charles Cabrera.
“In the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Panama… there is a strong urban music movement, but boleros, salsa, mambo, merengue, bachata, are still in the market, because the members work. In Cuba, the salseros, the boleristas, gave up, they stopped advertising their music, they don’t spread it, they don’t attend to their networks, they don’t make video clips or photo shoots, and all of that diminishes their popularity,” Cabrera also points out.
For the urban singer Levwhite, the genre “is being perfected although without losing its essence. I say that well-made music does not depend on the genre but on the artist who defends it and what he wants to convey,” he assures.
But could it be that Cuban society is becoming so homogenized that the cast occupies most of the musical charts? Marilianis affirms that she listens to all types of music, but that because of the contagious rhythm she cannot stop listening to hit songs.
Michel Hernández confesses that, from his perspective as a professional and Cuban, the influence of the cast and its expansion represent the result of social changes: “People, faced with a critical reality, have found in the genre a way to dissipate their conflicts. It is a society that does not have the same values of the 80s or 90s, and today’s young people do not have the ideological or cultural paradigms that those had. “They have found in the genre a way to demonstrate their position in the face of a reality, a life that tends towards consumerism, individualism, the need to survive.”
“A triumph for a delivery man is his way of promoting success, with expensive clothes, a luxury car, and they have done that in the midst of the crisis, that type of paradigm is being replicated. The worrying thing is that, despite having a cultural base, it is linked to violence, to sex, to certain values that denote a marginality that has taken over the country, from which they draw inspiration to make their songs,” added Hernández.
In addition to whether its way of expressing social disagreements, the common themes about which Cubans dialogue, its being a flag for the “misunderstood” classes, the inhabitants of marginalized neighborhoods, its Cuban-mixed rhythm, it seems that the distribution It will continue, at least for a while longer, among the preference lists of the young and not so young generations.
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