Porno Para Ricardo: rock music and the ‘obsession with identity’ in contemporary Cuba

Abstract

AbstractThe desire to construct and define a sense of national identity has often been regarded as something of an ‘obsession’ in Cuban political and cultural discourse. Throughout the Revolution, rock music has consistently played some part in the making of a Cuban soundscape. Yet rock has often been seen as something of a threat to an ‘autochthonous’ construction of Cuban culture, and has often been denied legitimacy as part of the Cuban soundworld. Despite the rather liminal position it occupied throughout the revolutionary period, rock music in contemporary Cuba is as ‘obsessed’ with constructing, defining and reflecting a sense of Cubanness as more ‘recognisably Cuban’ musical forms. In this paper I explore some of the negotiations and conflicts in the music of the controversial rock band, Porno Para Ricardo: negotiations between traditional musics, the state and rock music in the perennial quest to defineCubanía.