Critical Review #10

In her article “Dancing with the Enemy,” Pacini Hernandez outlines a history of Afro-Cuban music and describes its emergence on the world scene. Because of the country’s history, she talks quite a bit about politics and the 1959 revolution. She makes interesting points about the “value of authenticity in the world music landscape;” the idea the Cuba inadvertently supported all musical traditions, even those that it might have felt badly about supporting; and marketing. She then describes the difficulties that Cuban musicians have faced in exporting their music, not because of their musical training (which she says was fantastic), but because of their lack of experience with capitalism. She closes her article with questions about the future of Cuban music. It seems that with a new president come new Cuba policies, so perhaps she will soon see some answers.

Pacini Hernandez mentioned that some Cubans were exasperated by Afro-Cuban music “hogging the spotlight” in the US. Does this happen with other music cultures? Is there one type of music that represents Africa to us, for example?