Yotuel Romero has set out to put Cuba back in the spotlight. The singer has been announcing for days that this Friday, May 20, he will launch a song with Cris Tamayo and Emily Estefan, daughter of Gloria Estefan, with which he, he assures, "is going to paralyze Cuba completely." A date that is not trivial, because it is when the 120th anniversary of the founding of the republic will be commemorated.
Romero has also reported that the artist Luis Manero Otero Alcántara, imprisoned in Cuba since last July for participating in demonstrations against the government, is the author of the album cover that will be released starting tomorrow. “My people wait carefully for May 20 because that day is going to be historic. We will make history again ”, he has advanced on his social networks.
The message has caused expectation, as the Orishas vocalist and MasterChef Celebrity contestant is expected to put the country's government on the ropes again, as happened with his previous hit, the revolutionary Patria y Vida. Performed by Yotuel himself along with the duo Gente de Zona and rappers Eliecer Márquez 'El Funky' and Maykel Castillo 'El Osorbo', Patria y Vida came to light in early 2021 and went on to win two Latin Grammys, including that of song of the year His message is contrary to the famous emblem of Fidel Castro, Fatherland or death, which can be read on official propaganda posters. “This feeling is already old”, denounces the song at its beginning.
But its impact went further, as it became the anthem of the anti-government protests that have been taking place in recent months on the island. The largest of them took place in July and ended with hundreds of arrests. One of the prisoners was precisely an author of the song, Maykel Castillo, who was accused of "attack, public disorder and evasion" after participating in several demonstrations. The island's official press came to label him at the time as a "mercenary" and as being "at the service of the CIA and the enemies of the revolution."
The Cuban government has been trying for years to control the country's political discourse through the Internet. What the rulers did not count on is that something as apparently innocent as a song could question it. At least among the youngest. And it is that they are the ones who, despite the island's difficulties in connecting to the network, do the impossible to see what is happening beyond their borders, either through a USB or through the news that they receive from those who they live outside
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