Diaspora, de/reterritorialization and negotiation of identitary music practices in “La Rumba de Pedro Pablo”: a case study of Cuban traditional and popular music in 21st Madrid

Abstract

This text is part of the article "La Rumba de Pedro Pablo: de/reterritorialization of Cuban folkloric, traditional and popular practices in the Madrid music scene of the 21 st century" published in Spanish in the dossier "Abre la muralla: refracciones latinoamericanas en la música popular española desde los años 1960", Celsa Alonso and Julio Ogas (coords.), in Cuadernos de Etnomusicología, Nº 13, 2019, as a result of the Research Project I+D+i: "Música en conflicto en España y Latinoamérica: entre la hegemonía y la transgresión (siglos XX y XXI)" HAR2015-64285-C2-1-P.Diaspora, de/reterritorialization and negotiation of identitary music practic... Artelogie, 16 | 2021 1 following 1996 press chronicle of barely two decades past, reflects how the Cuban music of those years was at its peak in Madrid: Madrid is experiencing a tropical, Antillean, and pleasant allure at the close of this century. Many cats disguised as mulatos at night gulp down mojitos and daiquiris and marinate to the rhythm of Caribbean salsa. In the dark of night, the phantom of La Lupe visits the downtown nightclubs. Omara Portuondo has taken over Celia Gámez. Manolín, el Médico de la Salsa, sings hot prescriptions in the Cuartel del Conde Duque. Compay Segundo and his band daily deliver in our bars the elixir of elegant old age. The old Trova Santiaguera captivates youngsters. In the plaza, Gema and Pavel open the jar of mixed-race essences. Bands such as Havana Conexion or Sociedad Latina cause sensual sweats in dance halls. (…) Step-by-step this virus has spread around the city so much so that Madrid cannot currently be imagined without these Afro-Cuban and Caribbean rhythms. (CANTALAPIEDRA, 1996) Nowadays, this music scene offers various proposals that mark its uniqueness from a different reality, also derived from the echoes of that international and successful salsa boom and the subsequent phenomenon of the Buena Vista Social Club. 1 Cuba is on everybody's lips in Madrid. Havana is always present in Madrid with its semi-dark nightclubs and colorful mulatas. Some years ago, Madrid was overrun with Cuban venues, beginning or ending with 'La Comercial Cubana' or 'La Reina de Cuba' in Plaza de Cuzco where the island's stars of the Cuban son, from Carlos Manuel to Isaac Delgado, came to perform live. 'Azúcar' near the Atocha station is at present the only surviving spot. Long gone is that wondrous time, today's Cubanness still remains in the Puerta del Sol with two veteran, but lively venues called 'La Negra Tomasa' and 'El Son'. (HERRERA, 2015)Indeed, the Madrid of the last few years offers Cuban music and musicians a commercial circuit of lesser impact and diffusion (bars, restaurants, cafés, club and small concert halls). However, their discourses diversify reflecting richer proposals, genres, styles and hence an appropriation/re-significance of their music-culture competence. Little by little, these protagonists, professional musicians who mainly arrived with the 90s wave of Cuban migration ("Special Period"), 2 find employment in the active ...