It is no secret to anyone who tries to penetrate music’s complex world that having a clear-cut and futurist vision and committing to constant creation and revival have shown many artists the road to success. At times, however, you need much more than this, as well as an aptitude beyond question, when resorting to your deepest instincts becomes paramount. Three talented and captivating women who entered Cuban hip-hop at its very outset have based their work precisely on these grounds. Yanet Díaz Poey, Doricep Agramonte Ballester, and Yudith Porto Alfonso created Instinto, and traced out the route to be followed by female vocalists in this dynamic cultural movement.
Even if there have been changes to this project (Doricep is working on a new one, whereas Yanet and Yudith keep using the original name and are now performing in Spain), I deemed it convenient to recover this interview, so far unpublished, to point out thoughts and feelings of these singers who are indispensable when it comes to rap music in Cuba.
Mov.
When was this group established and in which circumstances?Doricep: Instinto
was born on March 5, 1995. There were Yanet, Iramis and myself. Then Iramis had to quit due to the beautiful process of pregnancy. After that came Yudith, who has fitted perfectly to the group’s image. It all started because of our preference for rap music and hip-hop culture. We thought of playing this music, which comes from African-American culture, with very Cuban lyrics, rhythm and style. We had boyfriends then, but they didn’t welcome this idea of some girls wanting to do rap. There was a choice to be made between our boyfriends and our professional career, and we chose rap. That’s how Instinto came forth.Mov.
With so many suggestive names to pick from for an all-female group, why Instinto?Yudith:
We went for this name after considering that our very feminine instincts are central to our work. This concept bears on how we perform and how we dress, on how we represent our individual personalities and moods. Thus our music helps the audience discern instincts of seduction and love. Many people have advised us to change our name for a best-selling one, but we like it as it is since it’s in line with our work. So we have kept it.Mov.
What does the group represent to each of you? How much time do you devote to rehearsals? Describe your daily life.Yanet:
It means a lot to me. We’ve been lucky to have created a group exactly as we dreamed it. All three of us have been able to enjoy our success. Now we can feel a growing confidence in both ourselves and the work we do. There’s another thing we have in common: we live for rap music.Doricep:
Our lives are ordinary: we help with housework, study, go dancing, hang around with friends in discotheques… We also work out to keep in shape.Yudith:
There’s also our boyfriends, who are already tamed, of course, and who now understand what we do. We rehearse from Monday to Friday, and dream of a prominent future for the group.Mov.
There are many female groups worldwide who do rap music, though usually at a level lower than men’s, and Cuba is no exception. What do you think is the reason there are so few female rappers in Cuba?Yanet:
I guess it’s because of fear of and insecurity to do something new like rap, but there’s another fact you can’t overlook. Our audience, albeit not a minority, is not as large as that attracted to salsa, and therefore there are not so many women around willing to do this. It has to be done out of love and feeling, since this kind of music boasts little support in Cuba, not to mention that it’s hardly profitable. We honestly and from our hearts urge young women to give it a try, and we’ll be at their beck and call for help and guidance. There are some groups out there already, like Sexto Sentido, and Magia, a girl who sings with the group Obsesión. It is my opinion that there should be women’s voices in Cuban rap, for Cuban women have much to say and express nowadays, and rap is par excellence a style for social expression.Mov.
Have you ever thought that perhaps your histrionic skills and physical beauty might somehow darken your work, namely, that a certain machista audience, either here or abroad, pay more attention to your physical qualities that to your artistic talent?Doricep:
Could be, though we work hard on our repertoire and to improve ourselves. We mostly do rap, but we also arrange choreographies and sing ballads in order to offer a more integrated and professional show. Nevertheless, some critics have tried to cast a shadow over our thing by pointing their fingers at our sensuality on stage and at how we dress. This is a tropical country, we’re Cuban and very womanly at that, so looking good and being sensual is part of our way of being, which makes us different from female rappers elsewhere. This kind of thing is quite common for women who sing and act, even for female salsa bands. That explains why Cuban women have always been in the limelight.Yanet:
I’d like to add something. When people, journalists, and critics come see Instinto, I wish they would see us not as a female rap group, but as just another group, another voice of rap, although one with a different tone, of course.Mov.
Your preferred topics and styles?Yudith:
Well, first of all we stand for and support women. Love, also, and we touch on some social issues.Yanet:
Yes, those have been our major topics, but now we are qualified to try others, even as new versions of classics such as “Kirino con su Tres”, known all over the world in the voice of Merceditas Valdés. We are working on a combination with lyrical music, a tango-rap. The idea is to take advantage of this style’s remarkable potential for fusion and come up with a comprehensive stock for all ages. We listen to and feed from any kind of music, mainly African American soul, gospel, jazz, reggae, and African American rhythms, by far our favorite.Mov.
Has Instinto been faced with barriers and obstacles to promote its work? What do you need to attain definitive success and rank higher in our culture?Doricep:
I’ll level with you. Instinto is better known abroad than in Cuba. Whatever promotion there has been in the country, we’ve made it ourselves by going to radio stations to launch our tunes and perform, not because anyone has come to us. Sometimes when we perform people don’t know who we are, and the group has been working non-stop for 5 years now. It’s incredible how many managers from Europe and the United States come looking for us. We have been mentioned in a number of important rap magazines from several countries and we have recorded some themes for various-artist collections. A few years ago they made a documentary film, entitled “Más Voltaje, Más Volumen”, about the history of Cuba’s hip-hop movement. It was shown at MIDEM in Miami and in Europe, but it’s yet to be seen in Cuban television. Unfortunately, we’ve been approached by managers who think only of how much money they could make with us.Yanet:
We don’t trade our concept for any manager or market. Granted, if someone more experienced and with a wider vision comes to us we could agree on meeting halfway between what he proposes and what we want. But no changing, as we say here, “de palo pa’ rumba”[1] on account of commercial concerns. Instinto will only change its work prospects at its own will and for its own interests, but we’ll never give up rap.Yudith:
Look, another obstacle is a shortage of technology to make this music and a lack of Cuban producers. Most rap groups in Cuba give voice to instrumental pieces and backgrounds made by other rappers from the United States and Europe. Some Cuban producers who have that technology ask for sky-high prices, even in dollars, and no rapper in the country can afford this. For the time being we are hoping to find a sincere and friendly helping hand.Doricep:
The way things are going, we’ll find ourselves doing like many Cuban artists who sign with foreign contractors, travel abroad, and hit it big, to be appraised here only after they return. Many experts in this field have assured that we would triumph in their countries, but we’re more interested in triumphing here in Cuba.Mov.
What happened with Magic Music?Yanet:
Things didn’t turn out well with that enterprise. We were beginners in this world of music and signed a contract that we barely read and interpreted. To us it was like a giant leap. They saw profit in the offing, just like we did from the artistic and economic viewpoint. But after we signed we felt frustrated, since some groups in their catalogue were being prioritized and no record or tours scheduled for Instinto ever arrived, let alone the fact that there were no friendly terms between the group and the record company, so we terminated our contract with Magic Music.Mov.
When the time comes for success, fame, tours and so on, will anything change in your personality, in the way to treat your neighborhood friends or those people who one way or another have supported Instinto’s work?Yudith:
I guess not. We’ve been through a lot together and we’ve lived in these difficult times with our neighbors, our people, our families. Fame and money are no substitute for feelings and respect for our comrades in music and struggle, because what we are doing to foster this style in Cuba is a struggle. We would help all those people blindly.Mov.
Many specialists and critics state their reservations about the existence of a Cuban rap. What do you think about that? Does Instinto do a Cuban rap?Doricep:
Absolutely! Which rap is more Cuban than the one played by Cubans in Cuba? Music is universal, regardless of rap music having sprouted in the United States. We enrich the one we do here with Cuban ingredients and mix it with African American music. Let me give you an example of one of our songs that goes, Le estoy cantando a un congo que lleva un garabato, le canto aquí a una negra que se pone saya, estoy buscando un congo sin fallo, estoy buscando a siete rayos. Africa y Cuba. Cuba y Africa.[2]Yanet:
Even our lyrics, some of which are our own and some others were made by my brother Orlando, speak about our life here in Cuba. It’s something genuine. Foreign rappers don’t speak about that. Also the dancing figures we create are undeniably Cuban. There is such thing as a Cuban rap, and we are certainly part of it.Mov.
Have you ever felt to be censored for your lyrics or your shows?Yanet:
Of course, that happens every day to Cuban rappers. There is permanent fear of what we are going to say. I don’t know why that is, because our projection will always be positive and constructive. Sometimes we want to use double-entendre, something we Cubans often use to be funny, to be sexy, but now and then they take it the wrong way. For our two television appearances we have been told to control our movements and expressions and not to strut so much. I think that’s a tremendous absurdity. On another occasion, in a radio program, they started to argue about who would interview the group, because no one there liked rap and had no information about it either. If it hadn’t been for our need to promote Instinto and the professional level we were seeking, we would have refused to be in that program.Yudith:
Same thing when we perform. Sound operators believe that, since rap is a small-format rhythm, it needs not much attention. They turn on the console, raise the mikes and forget about everything else. I reckon the audiovisual media are short on willingness and information. Rap music is totally misunderstood.Mov.
Can you mention some of your most important performances and activities?Yudith:
We first performed in the Café Cantante of Teatro Nacional back in 1996. We’ve been in Patio de la Salsa in San Miguel del Padrón; the Rap Plaza Festival in ’96; in the Casa de la Cultura of this municipality (where we finished in first place); we’ve played also in the 2nd. Cuban Rap Festival of Alamar, where we finished second; in Teatro Mella; at the welcome reception for filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar in Teatro García Lorca; in Teatro Sauto of Matanzas; in World Youth and Students Festival; in the Días de la Música Festival of 1998, where we were granted a training scholarship and became one of the Hermanos Saíz Association’s National Projects. We’ve had the chance of performing in other provinces, such as in the May Processions, which has been quite positive because we were able to extend our proposal to other audiences. I’d like to add that we already belong to the Centro Nacional de la Música Popular and to Empresa Artística Benny Moré, together with groups such as Anónimo Consejo, Obsesión, Grandes Ligas, and Doble Filo. There are many very good groups in Cuba right now, just as there are others in need of some polishing lest they tarnish the quality of the former. We work in a lot of places and try to take our music everywhere in the country, with no other intention than a purely artistic interest.Mov.
Any recommendation to future female rappers?Yanet:
May they sincerely feel like making this music, may they never see our style in a context of competition with other, more preferred and promoted rhythms. May they come to us, and rehearse, learn, and forge their own stamp, and if possible, let those be their principles. Many people avoid starting new things for fear of failure, without realizing that the only true failure is that of not starting anything. Such is Instinto’s way.Mov.
Anything we forgot to mention?Doricep:
Sure. Our special thanks to our mothers, who are our source of inspiration, who underscore and criticize our mistakes and share our success, and take part of their free time to give us advise. They are the ones who cut out their old clothes to make our own outfits. We’ve been greatly supported by UNEAC[3] in their Peña del Ambia, where we have performed so many times. Our thanks as well to Hermanos Saíz Association’s Grupo 1 (Cuban Rap Promotion Group) who put a lot of effort to organize our Cuban Rap Festival every year and thus help promote this music. Our acknowledgments to our sing teacher Silvia Ramos; to Adalberto, the DJ of Moña[4]; and last but not least, to all those who have helped us in any way whatsoever with our profession.
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[1] A sudden, often radical table-turning decision or move (T.N.).
[2] I am singing to a congo who carries a doodle, I am singing here to a black woman wearing a skirt, I’m looking for a flawless congo, I am looking for seven rays. Africa and Cuba. Cuba and Africa. (T.N.).
[3] National Union of Writers and Artists (T.N.).
[4] Cuban slang for African American hip-hop, particularly R & B (T.N.).