The Cuban Hip-Hop Ambassador
Ariel Fernández Díaz, a pioneer within the Cuban Hip-Hop movement, is not only a well respected DJ (DJ Asho), journalist, but also a true Hip-Hop historian. “I always explain in the context of Cuba, you cannot analyze the history of Hip-Hop culture in Cuba without analyzing the history of Cuba itself. Especially its relationship with the United States,” Ariel explains as we share a plate of yucca fries and enjoy cappuccino in a quaint Brazilian café in downtown Manhattan. Known as the “The Cuban Hip-Hop Ambassador” Ariel’s talent and passion for Hip-Hop culture has brought him to New York City, where he has been working extremely hard for the past four years.
Ariel’s relentless hard work has everything to do with his experiences in Cuba. Despite the difficult task of gaining access to American Hip-Hop music due to the embargo with America, Cubans managed to adopt and develop a Hip-Hop culture of their own. “In Cuba even today, 50 years after the revolution, there is not one record store, where you can buy an album from any country, not only American music or Latin music. There is not one record store in the entire country where you go with your money or your dollars and say okay I’m buying the last album of Michael Jackson or I’m buying the last album of Calle 30. The only way you get access to foreign music in Cuba is through personal relationships, personal connections, and friends from other countries that would send the music to you through mail or through a friend when they come. Or have family members who will send you the music. So you always need somebody who will provide the music to you, there is no other way to get it.” This inaccessibility defines Cuban Hip-Hop.
During the formative years of the Cuban scene listening to American Hip-Hop stations was illegal. Hip-Hop fans would illegally pick up Miami radio stations with combination of a good antenna, and even better weather. Hip-Hop in Cuba began during the “Special Period” in the mid 90’s when the Soviet Union fell and Cuba lost all economic support from the European socialist countries. Cubans who were once comfortable were instantly living in extreme poverty with barely any food or resources to live day to day. So not only was there an extreme lack of resources, but also a strained relationship between Cuba and America. “Cuba is always twenty years back in technology. So when America had cassettes, we had 8-track tapes. When America had CDs, we were using cassettes. Back in the day I used to have 8-track tape machine, a Russian machine from the Soviet Union with big tapes. What everybody was doing was connecting the machine to the radio to try to get the signal from the radio, and try to record the music straight from the radio station without commercials. That was basically a type of mixtape.” These Cuban mixtapes would then be shared at parties where people could enjoy their favorite songs. And since there was no vinyl, Cubans created their own way of DJing.
Ariel explains, “Then people started mixing with tapes. People would get a Walkman, and basically you were taking the cover of the Walkman so you can put the tape in easy without opening it. Two Walkmans keep them open, and put the tape in and you mark the tape where there is track and then there is a mixer in the middle. I started DJing like that.” This meticulous was the only way. With the mass production and commodification that is music in America it is hard for us to digest not having music at our fingertips, especially now with the Internet where one can find any song and album for free. In Cuba it was and is the opposite. It is possible for there to be one person that may be the sole owner of a particular album in the entire country. This made that person a carrier of extreme power.
Ariel: “I’ll tell you a funny story I remember one day somebody knocked on my door at 5 am just because he knew through gossip that I had the Common album ‘Like Water for Chocolate’. He knocked on my door at 5 o‘clock in the morning saying, “Yo man please lend me a copy of the CD. I know you have it. Somebody told me you have it. That was somebody so desperate to get access to music, the music that they love. It definitely created a passion, a real extra passion because you don’t have access to music. I think it’s a kind of beauty.”
Some people may describe Ariel Fernandez Diaz as “Afro-Cuban” others may call him Cuban because to them there is no separation of African identity and Cuban identity, but Ariel sees himself as a black man who is a part of the African Diaspora. For him Hip-Hop is a movement of the oppressed blacks within Cuba. “It’s definitely the voice of the oppressed people in the society, mostly the voice of the people who are left out in the society. And it happens that more than 95 percent of the people who are representing the Hip-Hop culture in Cuba happen to be black or African descent. I don’t think its coincidence.” Castro’s revolution in 1959 was about solidarity amongst Cubans, so the issue of race, which was viewed as a dividing factor during a time when Cuba especially needed strength and motives for unification, was swept underneath the rug. “And also we need to understand that most of the people who were down with Fidel and the revolution were people that came from the middle to high class. Fidel came from a rich family. He was really well educated, he was a lawyer, he was able to go to the university and had really good connections. The revolution, like some people say, was a class going over another class, the middle class going over the higher class. It was not the really poor people going over the high class. Definitely for Fidel and all the people who were involved with this process, race and justice of history was not a priority. People in the revolution had a priority about ownership of the land, about being proud of your connection with the land and the history of that land. Race was not an issue for them.” This proved to be a problem for the upcoming generation of blacks within Cuba who still felt racially oppressed and subjugated. Cuba has all the issues that a post-colonial nation has and it is clear that the issue of race is an uneasy one for most.
Because of the revolution Cuba never had the equivalent to a “Black power movement” that celebrated blackness, like we had in the U.S. Thus Hip-Hop provided a forum for efforts to gestate black empowerment. Ariel adds, “The main agenda of Hip-Hop was to bring the black issue up, more than anything. More about black identity, and the black movement.”
Ariel describes Hip-Hop in Cuba as “revolution within a revolution.” It served as a continuum of the political fight for justice and solidarity within the country. There were no get rich schemes or big record deals, because it was just not possible, so Hip-Hop was used as a political tool for a lost generation. “There are a lot of things in Cuba that we like. We like to have free health care, free education, we like that the streets are safe. But we also want more business, we also want access to Internet, we also want freedom to travel. So when I say a revolution within revolution is that we wanted to keep the benefits of the system but at the same time update the system. I am going to bring to my generation what my generation needs.” In a stagnant Cuba that still idealizes Castro and the revolution, Ariel and the Hip-Hop generation provide a voice that respects Castro’s endeavors but knows that Cuba needs to move forward.
