ABSTRACT

Havana 2005 and I am living in Vedado, uptown, in an area that before the 1959 Revolution was mostly white Hispanic middle-class and is now mixed socially and racially. Between May and July almost every night, through my bedroom window, I hear one song played frequently by the people officially squatting in the half-built building alongside. Each time it comes on, they pump up the volume. I become aware of this song everywhere, in taxis, fast-food restaurants and bars, at house parties and on the radio. It’s the song of the moment and, for a foreigner like me, it has ironic resonance. It’s called ‘A tí, te gustan los Yumas’ (‘Oh You, You Like Foreigners’) and on the home-burned compilation I buy from a Cuban on the street one day, I learn from the minimal information on the paper sleeve (names of songs and artist only) that it is by Reana (an artist I have so far not managed to find anything about). Its catchiness makes it stick in my memory immediately.