User:Dumo276/sandbox

a generation of struggling young Cubans, exposed to foreign tourists whose wealth contrasted with their low income, turned to rapping to affirm their latinidad and advocate for further revolutionary reforms

= Distribution = From the 1980s onward, Cubans have shared their love of music in private circles. The first sounds of American hip-hop came from Miami through radio waves in homes throughout Havana and elsewhere on the island. As raperos toured internationally during the 1990s, they brought back new records and mixtapes on CDs which exposed them to a greater diversity of music. Very few albums were actually sold in Cuba, however.

As the Internet became widely used worldwide, Cubans were left out of an explosion of cultural production and transmission. By the turn of the 21st century, international travel had become less restrictive for artists and more and more CDs came back. Quemadores, literally “burners,” decided to copy CDs onto USB flash drives to be shared person-to-person. This practice continues today alongside the pakete, a curated collection of entertainment including international rap music drawn from YouTube and other Internet sources.

= Women in Cuban Hip-Hop = A search for identity is characteristic of the genre. The challenge of situating themselves within the Revolution, which in its early days professed to eliminate racial and class distinctions, defines the artistry of most raperos.

Like men, women have been distinctly affected by the introduction of capitalism into Cuba. Jineterismo, a form of prostitution for tourists, affords poor Cuban women women access to American dollars that they cannot earn working for the state. Despite the sacrifice of their bodies to earn money, Las Krudas assert that equality is impossible without showing them respect, too.

All-female groups show their own side of Cuba. Rather than identify as Cuban first and foremost, members of Las Krudas call themselves other things as well: feminists, Afro-Cubans, and poor. The group speaks out against machismo, the dominance of men in Latin American cultures like Cuba. For Las Krudas, it is important to acknowledge social and economic differences among Cubans in order to re-imagine the gender roles that restrict many Cuban women in domestic roles like housekeeping.

Without widespread commercialization of music throughout Cuba, female hip-hop groups depend on public performances to express their identity and struggles. As Afro-Cuban men attempt to re-insert race into public conversations, their female counterparts simultaneously advocate racial and feminist discourses. Contrary to American hip-hop’s reputation for outspoken misogyny, Cuban hip-hop has developed spaces for feminist thought due to Las Krudas and other female groups.

Still, state control of the industry has limited their popularity and success. Concerts organized by the Cuban Agency of Rap often fail to pay female performers. In one instance, eleven performances combined to feature one woman, Magía Lopez of the husband-wife duo Obsesión, who was under contract with the Agency. One one hand, female raperas identify many flaws within Cuba that reflect failures of the Revolution to achieve equality. On the other, they assert that their brand of hip-hop is as Cuban, and therefore revolutionary, as any cultural production on the island. This is seen in "Vamos a Vence," a Las Krudas song which incorporates rhetoric first used by Fidel Castro to inspire community, pride, and a revolutionary spirit within the Cuban people. In a 21st century context, this defines a struggle for gender equality as well as the persistence of other social inequities that Cuban raperos first tackled.

Today, current and former members of Las Krudas live in the United States, where they continue to advocate for gender and sexual equality through North American tours, Internet campaigns, and trips to Cuba to support up and coming artists.

State Support
However, that early support has waned since the 1990s, drawing criticism from raperos who feel robbed of their platform to address social problems. In 2006, after ten years of hosting its annual hip-hop festival, the Asociacion Hermanos Saiz ended that critical chance for exposure for raperos. This inspired a renewed interest in independent concerts and festivals and a revival of the underground scene at events like Project Almendares in the Vedado district of Havana, hosted by prominent local DJ Alexis “D’Boys” Rodriguez and financed by international backers.

Still, the movement dwindled in popularity in the mid-2000s. Constrained by the state and seeing better economic opportunities elsewhere, artists like Ariel Fernandez Diaz and Las Krudas left for the United States, Europe, or other countries in Latin America. They constitute a Cuban hip-hop voluntary exile community that utilizes more widely available Internet resources and exposure to voice socially-conscious messages.

Los Aldeanos led a new generation of raperos in the late 2000s and early 2010s who rejected a conciliatory tone towards the Cuban government. Facing censorship for more aggressive anti-state rhetoric, the group was controversial within Cuba. In recent years, it has been discovered that the group was in part financed by a Serbian contractor. Additional accusations of support from USAID contribute to a state belief that Los Aldeanos worked against the Revolution. Like many other groups, the duo has moved abroad to more freely work.

Los Aldeanos also represent a “decentering of race” in Cuban hip-hop, as described by scholar Marc D. Perry. Whereas the Special Period scene focused heavily on discrepancies in experiences among Afro-Cubans and whiter Cubans, the issues were supplanted as the genre as a whole fell in popularity to reggaetón.

New Text:

Summary:

- a generation of young Cubans turned to rapping to assert appeal for revolutionary reforms and situate

Points to add:

Havana and Margioncentric Hip-hop:

- Casa de Cultura in Alamar - opened 1998(?), closed 2009, afterwards shift in scene to Vedado

- "Costa Este" and "Costa Norte" borrowed from American East Coast-West Coast rivalry

- peña - a show with various artists - display collaborative spirit of the scene

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Problems with the Article:

- summary at top is too short, does not encompass the significance in Cuba at all (it is much more than raperos "expressing their frustrations")

- Birth of a Cuban Scene section: extremely long, weighted too much towards U.S. influence, less talk of Cuban rappers, more U.S. rappers and their influence ("Black August" concerts)

- Suggested sub-heads: U.S. Influence, Concerts and Nightlife, Government Support, Notable Groups

- almost nothing is properly cited throughout the article

- Instead of citing authors properly, entire sentences are wasted describing the sources used for the previous sentence. Part of why the section is so long, besides repetitive information

- Quotes are not cited, or even closed off or attributed in-text

- A contrasting section on public/government funded hip-hop would segue into the rise of reggaeton

- La Moña should be re-integrated into a new section called Underground hip-hop

- "Merit" and "Marketing" could be one section, called "Clash with Reggaeton"

- "Nationalism" section could maybe divide into government sponsored and independent artists - illustrate aspects that the gov supports and those that are less visible

- A transnational section could be added, or at least discussed alongside U.S. influence. i.e. talk about Puerto Rico when talking about Reggaeton

- "Recent Events" discusses the Cuban Agency of Rap - this should be moved to a government support section earlier in the article

- Instead, this section should start at the 500 hip-hop groups on the island (find citation). Recent events could be restructured as "International hip-hop cubano"

- A "Distribution" section could talk about the peer-to-peer mixtape and file sharing

- Nehanda Abiodun is quoted too much, and re-introduced as a felon escaping racketeering charges three times lol

- Women in hip-hop should be its own section, not the footnote to the article

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