Rolling Stones, Performance Art and a Missing Artist in Cuba

"We know that years ago it was hard to hear our music in Cuba, but here we are playing for you on your beautiful land. I think finally times are changing." - Mick Jagger, from the stage in Havana, March 25, 2016 (In Spanish)

 

Gorki Águila and Lia Villares of Porno para Ricardo held a performance art protest on March 25, 2016 at 5:00pm prior to the start of the Rolling Stones concert in Havana, Cuba. During the Stones concert in Havana Mick Jagger recognized the prior censorship in Cuba that had banned the Rolling Stones and their music for decades expressing that he thought "finally times are changing" with their playing a concert now in the island. Former Cuban prisoner of conscience Regis Iglesias, and life long Rolling Stone fan tweeted:  "Really Dear Mick? Because the @RollingStones are in Cuba does not mean that anything has changed. Castro [does] not let me return to my own country, I can get no satisfaction, but time is on my side..."

#RollingStones rock Cuba with historic free concert https://t.co/NDB09Bmn2p #RollingStonesEnCuba pic.twitter.com/asGkQkr2wP

— dwnews (@dwnews) March 26, 2016

In addition, what transpired before the concert indicates that the British rocker may be mistaken in his belief. Fraudulent change is underway in Cuba as opposed to real change. The dictatorship in order to carry out its dynastic succession makes cosmetic changes while maintaining its repressive and totalitarian nature.

Gorki explained that "upon learning that we were announcing the performance here in the house [state security] closed the block at every corner and did not let anyone pass who had been invited." We saw the deployment of a lot of state security."

Unfortunately, Danilo Maldonado (also known as El Sexto) was arrested on his way to the performance and more than 12 hours later remains missing. El Sexto is a former Amnesty International prisoner of conscience and a performance artist who has been targeted for his works of art.

 
Gorki and Lia were joined later by others, among them activists Sayli Navarro, and Rosa María Payá Acevedo. Earlier today over twitter Rosa María asked people of good will to call the police stations in Havana and ask about the whereabouts of the missing Cuban artist.

 The Rolling Stones put on a great show that pleased hundreds of thousands of Cubans and that will be remembered in the history books. Below is the set list taken from their official twitter feed.

#StonesCuba setlist! 🇨🇺👅 pic.twitter.com/u2JwimdaTr

— The Rolling Stones (@RollingStones) March 26, 2016

Message for the Rolling Stones from Gorki and a new song from PPR "Down with you know who"

A message from punk rocker Gorki Águila to the Rolling Stones on their upcoming concert in Cuba and the nature of music censorship in the island.


"Ehhh, listen to what I gotta say, my brother. We, when you go over there, I’m talking with you Mick Jagger, yes, you, look over here, over here, you and your band. When you go over there and when Obama goes over there to Cuba. We will probably be stuck in a cell in the MININT (Ministry of the Interior). 

I don’t know if we’ll be able to play a small concert in the cell, but most probably they’ll put each musician in his own cell and we won’t be able to hear each other, you see? I’m a musician that’s censored in Cuba. I’m a musician that doesn’t have the right that you have to play where you want, understand? So at least inform yourself. That’s all I ask. Yell whatever you like but inform yourself.

And if you want to play because you want to play in a tyranny, do whatever you want to do but this; hopefully this gets to you, what I’m talking about here. 

"In Cuba musicians are censored." - Gorki [Artwork by Sergio Lastre]

 In Cuba musicians are censored. There are musicians that aren’t allowed to play; there are women that are beaten [by the Castro regime]. And I would love to tell it to the artists, my brother, inform yourselves first about what’s going on in Cuba and at least let out a “down with Castro” you know, a little one, my brother. Come on Rolling Stones, go for it, my brother. Ah Keith Richards! Keith Richards, he’s crazier. Keith Richards, say something, my little brother, say something, go for it with 100,000 watts, 'Down with you know who!'” 

The new song from Porno para Ricardo, "Down with you know Who" exposes Castro regime's anti-rock n roll and censorship back ground.


When people ask if progress has been made on the music scene in Cuba, an important question arises. "What does it say about the regime in Cuba that British and American rock bands are now heard over the airwaves in Cuba and The Rolling Stones are playing a concert tonight in Cuba and at the same time the music of Cuban musicians of the stature of Celia Cruz and Olga Guillot remain censored in Cuba, even though they passed away years ago?"

Claim were made in 2012 that the censorship of these artists had been quietly ended but official channels internally confirmed that it was not true. On August 21, 2012 Tony Pinelli, a well known musician and radio producer, distributed an e-mail in which Rolando Álvarez, the national director of the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television Instituto Cubano de Radio y Televisión (ICRT) confirmed that the music of the late Celia Cruz would continue to be banned. The e-mail clearly stated: 

"All those who had allied with the enemy, who acted against our families, like Celia Cruz, who went to sing at the Guantanamo Base, the ICRT arrogated to itself the right, quite properly, not to disseminate them on Cuban radio." 

The irony that it was the Castro regime, that acted against Cuban families dividing them for over half a century, in 1962 denied Celia Cruz's request to return to Cuba to attend her mother's burial. She never again tried to return to Cuba after that and passed away in exile in 2003. Three years after John Lennon's statue was unveiled by Fidel Castro in a park in Havana, Cuba.

 

The British take Havana again: The Rolling Stones rock Cuba

It's only rock n roll

The British empire invaded and occupied Havana in March of 1762. They traded Havana back to Spain in exchange for all of Florida in 1763 and two hundred years later another British invasion, this time with rock n roll music, not military fleets invaded and conquered the world. The Rolling Stones were one of the shock troops of British rock n roll.

Their music and presence banned from Cuba by Fidel Castro during their heyday in the 1960s through the 1990s only now when Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are both 72, Charlie Watts 74, and Ron Woods 69 will Cubans be able to finally see them play in Havana. This is because the Rolling Stones came into existence in 1962, and the following year in Cuba that kind of music was forbidden.

On March 13, 1963 Fidel Castro gave a speech were he openly attacked “long-haired layabouts, the children of bourgeois families,” roaming the streets wearing “trousers that are too tight,” carrying guitars to look like Elvis Presley, who took “their licentious behavior to the extreme” of organizing “effeminate shows” in public places. The Cuban dictator warned: “They should not confuse the Revolution’s serenity and tranquility with weaknesses in the Revolution. Our society cannot accept these degeneracies.”

The punk rock band Porno para Ricardo summed up the old official attitude with the chorus from the one of their songs La Puerca Roja: It's only rock n roll pero te molesta (but it bothers you)

Bit sad really.  This band has been rocking the world for six decades and only now has been allowed to play Cuba three days after President Obama's historic visit to the island. 

The British invasion arrives in 2016: The Rolling Stones in Cuba

Sadder still Cuban musical icons, loved the world over, are still banned on the official airwaves posthumously because they didn't like the government.

It was pretty cool that Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts passed by the University of Miami to jam with music students earlier this week. Members of the band have always had a well earned reputation of being pretty cool.

Not too shabby after six decades touring and making music.

Still remember seeing The Rolling Stones during the Steel Wheels Tour in Miami in 1989. Amazing show 27 years ago and they seriously rocked the entire stadium.

Rock n roll fans in Cuba have addressed the difficulties they had getting to listen to the Rolling Stones and some current rock n rollers, who are being persecuted have made a call out to the band. 

The playlist below mixes together some classic Rolling Stones and Cuban rockers sending them a message.