Cuban Hip Hop Artists Seek Freedom Of Speech

Cuban Hip Hop artist attended the Seventh Summit of the Americas in Panama which discussed subjects such as Prosperity with Equity,  and The Challenge of Cooperation in the Americas”.

Hip Hop artist David Escalona (a.k.a David D’Omni) was present at the summit with his Hip Hop group Omnizonafranca, a Hip Hop collective consisting of six other rappers.

Escalona proclaimed at the summit “When you do Hip Hop in Cuba, you already know you won’t be able make a living from it,” “If someone does Hip Hop in Cuba, it’s because that person has something to say.”

Escalona Professed “even traveling to the Summit to discuss Hip Hop was risky”. “Rappers in his country have been marginalized and forced to perform secret shows in houses or small venues. Many peers have faced censorship and government persecution”.

Escalona continues “I believe that freedom should be part of your being: one must be free first, and everything else comes after that,” he said. “Being free has consequences. To feel free has consequences. But that’s like a river. You might come across a rock, but you carry on past it.

“What we come across are natural obstacles, that we ought to view these, to a point, in a relaxed way”. “Given that we live in a society, sometimes these natural obstacles can be censorship. Especially when we have a totalitarian government that controls the radio, the television, the economy. In that case, what’s left for the river is to evaporate and rain elsewhere. That’s what we’ve done.”

Although Cuban Hip Hop has been oppressed by the government, it has not stopped the genre growing in popularity within the country.