José Luis Picón I Málaga, (EFE).- There have been songs that have accompanied social movements, but, for the first time in history, a song, “Patria y vida”, reversed the process and in 2021 was the seed of a unprecedented protest in Cuba, as shown by a documentary directed by Beatriz Luengo.
The documentary “Patria y vida: El poder de la música”, which will be presented this Tuesday at the Malaga Festival, was born “on the day in Washington in which the song was introduced as part of the book of Congress along with mythical speeches such as the by Luther King, and the president of the United States read it so that future generations know that it was a hymn of freedom”, explains Beatriz Luengo.
In an interview with EFE along with Yotuel Romero, one of the creators of the song, Luengo reveals that, when she was returning by plane that day to Miami, she decided that this story should be a documentary, and if she didn’t do it, “someone would.” , but twenty years from now, because the importance of historical movements around art is always seen over time”.
He began working on the script so that it would not be “a cut and paste of images” and sought “a common thread through the music and life of Yotuel, which is impressive, to do justice to this cause.”
The motto “Fatherland or death”
He also wanted to “vindicate music when it speaks from a place far from what the algorithm is looking for, now that all the songs have the same chord and the same lyrics, because music is composed as if it were a mathematical equation.”
Yotuel explains how they turned around the traditional motto of the Cuban regime, “Patria o muerte”, to arrive at this “Patria y vida”.
“It is important that now that the world is on the path of inclusiveness, this also applies to Cuba. There the dictatorship is ‘homeland or death’, or the homeland as they conceive it or if not, you die. That is the old Cuba, the new Cuba wants homeland and life, you and me, my difference and yours, that inclusive way in which we all have a place in Cuba, that is why it connected a lot with the Cuban”.
The singer knew that the title contained “an important and strong play on words at the message level when you are born in a society in which the strongest propaganda everywhere is ‘homeland or death’.”
But he admits that they did not expect the “scale” of the reaction of the Cubans “and how they were going to tattoo that ‘patria y vida’ as a ‘leitmotif’ on their hearts and bodies and it was going to give them courage to go out the street for the first time in sixty years.
The success of the song did not stop at the social protest, because it also won two Latin Grammys, something that for Yotuel shows that “music also has to do with saying important things and transforming society.”
A free Cuba
“Many artists are following the herd. If a song wants to talk about claims and the problems you have, say so. ‘Patria y vida’ has shown that you can have a Grammy and be relevant. There are people who believe that relevance is only with the success of the algorithm, and you have to be relevant from your own freedom”.
After the impact of the song, Yotuel believes that the documentary also “has that force” to “visualize that the rapper Maykel Osorbo and the artist Luis Manuel Otero are imprisoned just for saying ‘patria y vida’.”
“We want the whole world to see this cause and feel empathy with the Cuban people, and for the Cuban people to know that the whole world is with them saying that it is time for Cuba to be free,” Yotuel highlights.
The same desire is shared by Beatriz Luengo, who recalls that a musicologist said that “many songs have accompanied social movements, but for the first time in history a social movement starts from a song that gives it its name.”
“I bristle telling it still. We have admired Bob Marley, Bob Dylan, Billie Holiday or John Lennon, and we never thought we would see ourselves in that group”.
“I want the Cubans who demonstrated, found repression and beatings and are imprisoned with sentences of five to twenty-five years just for demonstrating, with the documentary they see everything they achieved and it gives them the feeling of wanting to go out on the streets to demonstrate,” highlights Luengo. EFE