Interviews

The Cuban Rap Agency Controversy (Alcaild’s Version)

“A lot of things have happened, and I think that many of the goals have been achieved by those who started actions around that demand: the demotion of the agency’s director. The most important thing now is to rebuild, to see how we can move the Cuban Agency of Rap forward,” said Alcaild in his interview with HT.

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Cuban Painter Diego Torres

Within contemporary visual arts on the island, Diego Torres is a luminary among the great Cuban landscape artists. However, in our interview he told HT: “I hate for people to pigeonhole me; I don’t even like being called a landscape artist because — though that’s what I do — I try to go beyond that genre.”

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Two Creative Cuban Women

Two Cuban women — Estela Estevez and Eria Arrate — came together in order to create, and soon they will taking their works to the United States. As they commented, “The ‘Isla project’ proposes a search related to the feeling of ‘isolation.’”

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Cuba on Skates: King of the Road

Joaquin P. Gonzalez Cabrera flashes past like a whirlwind skating down Alamar Avenue. In one hand he grips a rubber tube to protect his knees and elbows in case he falls and on his head he has a helmet that says “Alamar, Lone Skater.”

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Cuban Rappers ‘Doble Filo’

Members of the popular rap duo Doble Filo (Yrak “Vitalicio” Saenz and Edgar “Edgaro” Gonzalez) granted an exclusive interview to Havana Times. As they noted, “There has always been a wall of misunderstanding when it comes to promoting rap music in Cuba.”

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Mercedes, Physically Challenged in Cuba

Through a friend I got to know Maria de las Mercedes Gonzalez Amade, a young Havana woman who was physically challenged from an early age. Mercedes walks with great difficulty and life is a constant struggle for her to stay on her feet. Despite it all she still tries to make the most of things.

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Havana, Cuba Rap Festival Opens

A new edition of the Alamar rap festival (Feb. 24-26) was what prompted this interview with Rodolfo Rensoli. He and Grupo Uno were the principal promoters of the festivals between 1995 and 2000 that first revealed the existence of a “rap” movement in Havana and perhaps in all of Cuba.

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The Truths My Camera Observes

Ruben Aja Gari always has his camera in hand, he wanders the streets of Santiago de Cuba in his hunt for every detail of daily life, which he later gives back to us made into art.

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