Confrontation and Occurrence: Ethical–Esthetic Expressions of Blackness in Post-Soviet Cuba

Abstract

This study examines expressions of blackness in Cuban society from the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 until the present. It focuses on the works of rap groups Anónimo Consejo, Hermanos de Causa and Obsesión; which are considered together with the creation of black visual artists Juan Roberto Diago, Alexis Esquivel and René ‘Pupi’ Peña. The comparative analysis is grounded in an understanding of Hip-hop as a transnational cultural system. The works are viewed as belonging to a single cultural system because they share ethical–esthetic elements drawn from Hip-hop. Such shared elements include racial pride, rupture, and frequent references to Afro-Cuban deities and cimarronaje – the spirit of the fugitive slave. Approaching Hip-hop as a transnational phenomenon, the article develops a non-exclusivist analysis of present-day Cuban society that situates the nation's particular dynamic in a global context. The ontological perspective, determinant in the article, facilitates the examination of black Cubans’ strategies for self-definition from within their position of otherness in Cuban culture, history and society. Confrontation and occurrence are the two principal strategies adopted by the artists analyzed.