Frank Delgado, Havana & Miami: A Tale of Two Cities and Censorship*

My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular. ~Adlai Stevenson


Frank Delgado returns to Miami to play the Manuel Artime Theater this Sunday, after playing his last concert here in 2000. He was interviewed and played some of his music on MegaTV in the program "Esta Noche Tu Night" just days before the concert.



Freedom of expression both artistic and political were on display Sunday night both inside and outside of the Theater. Prior to the start of the concert there was a demonstration across the street from the Manuel Artime Theater.

Demonstrators protesting cultural exchanges with Cuban dictatorship

The concert was streamed live (although the sound was horrible) one could still make out that Delgado ran through his repertoire with an enthusiastic audience that already knew the words. Nueva onda Cuba reported that Frank Delgado estimated his audience at 400 but Nueva Onda said it was probably more. Here are some of the songs he is best known for: "La Otra Orilla" from Sunday night and the video "Mi Mapa" with the lead actor now in exile.


Frank Delgado: "La Otra Orilla" in Miami 2010

The lyrics in many of his songs offer a critical appraisal of the reality on the ground in the island most likely reflecting popular frustrations with the regime, but some like "Mi Mapa" are just well written ballads.


Frank Delgado: "Mi Mapa"

Contrast this with how the Cuban regime operates according to the book Shoot the singer!: music censorship today edited by Marie Korpe there is increasing concern within the international music community that post-revolution generations in Cuba are growing up without knowing Cuban musicians who left permanently after the revolution who are heavily censored by the regime and that not hearing these censored musicians could lead to a loss of Cuban identity in future generations.

Frank Delgado in Miami
photo by Nueva Onda Cuba

A partial listing of musicians who have been censored is a who's who of Cuban music: Israel Cachao López, Ramón "Mongo" Santamaría,Miguelito Valdés, Mario Bauza, Olga Guillot, Celia Cruz, Paquito D’Rivera, Arturo Sandoval, Gloria Estefan, Bobby Jimenez and Bibiana Borroto. Others who remained in Cuba were and are also subject to censorship to lesser and greater degrees among them: Pedro Luis Ferrer, Porno Para Ricardo, Los Aldeanos, Carlos Varela and Frank Delgado. Some of the songs in the playlist below have been censored in Cuba.



*With apologies to Charles Dickens.

Carlos Varela rocks Miami

Carlos Varela visited the United States back in 1998 and played in Miami. A reuters article titled: Carlos Varela: Cuba's Bob Dylan or Paul Simon? Outlined the life of this great musical talent, but the article also exposed the dark underbelly of the Cuban dictatorship's cultural genocide. Not only banning Cuban artists that refused to tow the regime line, but entire schools of music like jazz and rock. In the above mentioned article it described how Varela was able to encounter both Dylan's and Simon's music then banned in the official media:

As a teen-ager, Varela said, he listened avidly to U.S. pop and rock FM radio stations by fashioning a crude radio antenna from a wire more than 15 feet (five metres) long hung from a window in his home. That is how he heard Simon and Garfunkel songs including "Sounds of Silence'' and "Bridge Over Troubled Water'' that he says had an influence on his music.

Imagine that, one of the great Cuban artists of his generation having to set up an apparatus to listen to forbidden music which would shape him as an artist and impact the world. Twelve years after this article he returns to tour in the United States and play in Miami.



The Miami Herald's Jordan Levin offers an excellent overview of the Carlos Varela concert at the Gusman Center in downtown Miami on Saturday night May 15, 2010 and in her review describes how the audience impacted the concert:

They might have taken some things beyond or other than Varela intended, but that’s the power of music. He looked slightly uncomfortable when, during Guillermo Tell, shouts of Cuba! Cuba! were followed by Libre! Libre!

For those interested a breakdown of the songs played over the course of the evening.


Concert setlist

1. Colgando del Cielo
2. El Niño
3. Telon de Fondo
4. Nubes
5. Como los Peces
6. Robinson
7. Muros y Puertas
8. Mi Fe
9. Siete
10. Luna de Vino Tinto
11. Lucas y Lucia
12 El Leñador
13. Guillermo Tell
14. Memorias
15. Foto de Familia
16. 25,000 Mentiras
17. Los Mapas Están Cambiando
18. Habaname
19. Como un Ángel
20. La Política
Over the years I've spoken out in favor of freedom of expression no matter how unpopular and denounced attempts to intimidate or threaten expression while at the same time recognizing how a totalitarian regime like the one in Cuba can manipulate images to advance its own agenda.

Nevertheless I don't see how Varela's concert or statements in favor of the Ladies in White and demonstrating respect for Cuban hunger strikers can be used by the Castro regime. Add to that an audience at the concert that engaged in shout outs for Zapata, the Ladies in White, and for a free Cuba.



To the contrary other than a small group of the usual suspects destroying albums there were little or no images of use for the dictatorship.