Carlos Varela is one of the best-known singer-songwriters to emerge from the Cuban nueva trova movement: heir to the musical traditions forged by Silvio Rodríguez and Pablo Milanés. Parochially, if accurately, known in North America as “Cuba’s Bob Dylan,” he has produced eight CDs since he began recording in 1988 and has toured Europe, the United Kingdom, Latin America, the Caribbean, and North America. In Cuba he is known as the voice of the generation that came of age during the Special Period of the 1990s, those raised with the promise and seeming collapse of the Cuban Revolution, for whom his songs have become generational anthems. In this interview, Varela discusses the meaning his music has for Cubans in the diaspora and on the island, the benefits and liabilities of creating music in today’s Cuba, censorship, history, the current Cuban hip-hop scene, and the ongoing significance of music as a political language for his own and other generations of Cubans. He also shares some reflections about his own career and his song-writing process since the 1980s., unedited non–English abstract received by RILM] Carlos Varela es uno de los cantautores más famosos surgido del movimiento cubano de la nueva trova, y heredero de la tradición musical de Silvio Rodríguez y Pablo Milanés. Celebrado como el “Bob Dylan cubano”, ha producido ocho discos desde que comenzó a grabar en 1988, y ha dado giras por Europa, el Reino Unido, América Latina, el Caribe y América del Norte. En Cuba, Varela es conocido como la voz de la generación que se formó durante el Período Especial de los años noventa, los que crecieron con la promesa y, a la vez, la desilusión de la Revolución Cubana, y para quienes sus canciones se convirtieron en himnos generacionales. En esta entrevista, habla sobre el significado de sus canciones para los cubanos dentro y fuera de la isla, sobre los beneficios y las dificultades de la creación musical en la Cuba de hoy, sobre la censura, la historia, el escenario actual del hip-hop cubano, y el constante significado de la música como lenguaje político, tanto para su generación como para las otras generaciones de cubanos. También, Varela comparte algunas reflexiones sobre su carrera y el proceso de creación de sus canciones desde los años ochenta.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
238 p, A reaffirmation of the validity of that persistent quest by the Jamaican and Caribbean people for place and purpose in a globalised world of continuous change. In post-colonial societies like Jamaica, the issue of cultural identity is as important as political independence and economic self-sufficiency. Rex Nettleford goes further by declaring that cultural identity is as fundamental a reality as food, shelter, clothing and job opportunities and is not a mere abstract preoccupation. For this reason, cultural ‘action’ is central to effective social change. Caribbean Cultural Identity analyses and illustrates the dynamics of cultural evolution in the Caribbean. Nettleford focuses on the problems of identity, particularly as it relates to cultural pluralism and Eurocentricity and describes in detail the role that the performing arts have played in shaping the general development of Jamaica as well as the Caribbean in general.
Examines children's musical practices on Corn Island, some 52 miles off the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua, which has long been a site of cross-cultural interaction and exchange. In 1987, as part of the postwar peace agreements, two autonomous regions—north and south—were established on the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua. The cultural and education aspects of autonomy came to be envisioned largely through concepts of interculturalidad, or interculturalism. Children's musical practices enter into discourses of interculturalism in several ways. They are often important symbols of the future; informal genres of vernacular expression (such as singing games) are a key resource for curricular reform that aims to bring regional folklore into the classroom; and they are central to processes of cultural interaction, exchange, and transformation. This is because children's activities are often oriented toward playful improvisation and because children are key actors in processes of socialization and adaptation to changing circumstances. Expressive practices such as music are dialogic tools through which differences are enacted, through which boundaries are constructed within and between social groups. This understanding of interculturalism as an everyday practice helps us see how culture emerges from interaction and play and how communication is accomplished using a diverse pool of resources. This essay focuses on the children of Miskitu migrants on Corn Island, particularly on singing game performance.
Siegel,Peter E. (Author) and Righter, Elizabeth (Author)
Format:
Book, Whole
Publication Date:
2011
Published:
Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
202 p., Practitioners of heritage management on the frontline of their own islands address the current state of affairs across the Caribbean to present a comprehensive overview of Caribbean heritage preservation challenges.
