Cuban's songs bring message

By JORDAN LEVIN
Special to The Herald

At home in Havana, where his poetic songs of disaffection and protest have made him a hero to Cuban youth, Carlos Varela would have been recognized by everyone. But on Tuesday evening in South Beach, sitting at the News Cafe on Ocean Drive, he was just another hipster rocker in the tourist stream -- complete with goatee, black bandanna and black jacket.

His friend Maria Romeu, who had arranged for Varela to appear at the Songwriters in the Round showcase at the Beach's Park Central Hotel later that night, handed him her cellular phone. ``I'm playing in Miami!'' Varela, 34, said jubilantly to a Cuban friend. ``You better show up!''

Some six months after Miami Beach official Peggi McKinley was removed from a city entertainment board for saying that Cuban artists should be allowed to play at the Midem Latin American and Caribbean music conference, almost two years after protesters excoriated the audience going to see Cuban jazz pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba, one of Cuba's most famous musicians performed in Miami without incident.

Quiet, but not secret

It was in part because he did so quietly, singing three songs at the Songwriters showcase, a monthly insiders' event staged by music publisher Warner/Chappell, in front of a mixed crowd of young Hispanics and country music aficionados, and performing in a private home on Wednesday. But neither was it the kind of secret appearance, with news spread word-of-mouth, that for years let certain people know that Cuban salsa star El Medico would show up at Little Havana's Cafe Nostalgia, or that members of Los Van Van, Cuba's leading dance band, would be jamming at local venues.

In the wake of attention following the Pope's visit to Cuba, and the unsettled conservative exile leadership since the death of Jorge Mas Canosa last fall, Varela's visit seemed to crystalize a crucial change in relations between Cubans here and on the island. It is coming not from the older generations who fought for and fled the revolution, but from their children on both sides of the water, frustrated by their inability to speak out or affect change. The voice of the younger generation in Cuba, Varela has found an audience among their counterparts in Miami.

``The younger generation is less willing to join the old dialogue,'' said Dario Moreno, a political science professor at Florida International University who specializes in exile politics. ``The exiles' children share their parents' view that the regime must change and there should be democracy in Cuba, but they're not willing to join in that strident rhetoric. For them, listening to a musician from Cuba is not a political expression, it's private.''

A private performance

As Varela played at the private show Wednesday at a home near downtown Miami, a crowd of some 150 people, largely Cubans in their 20s and 30s, screamed, cheered, wept and sang along. When he forgot a line to Guillermo Tell, in which William Tell's son tells his father that it's time to trade places and for him to shoot the apple off his father's head, they sang it for him.

``Sing without fear!'' someone yelled.

``I sing without fear in Cuba,'' Varela replied. ``Why should I sing with fear here?''

Varela's songs express frustration, disillusionment and a yearning for freedom; his lyrics are often critical of the Cuban government, but can also include lines like ``F--- your embargo!''

Distrustful on 2 fronts

Varela has always been as distrustful of the Cuban establishment in Miami as he is of the government at home, reluctant to become a party to what he sees as manipulative and divisive politics on both sides. But when Romeu offered to arrange his appearances here in between performances in New York and California, he accepted.

``I've had other invitations,'' Varela said in an interview on Wednesday. ``I didn't want to perform in Miami, because I thought it would be chaos. I couldn't accept that a concert of mine would be used to sanctify one kind of Cuban or another.

He thinks that things have changed. ``I came this time because it was an opportunity to see what is happening. Everyone gives you a different picture of Miami, just like everyone gives you a different picture of my country. The only experience that matters is to be in contact. I think we are both too close and too far from each other.

The artist's role

``Maybe the songs I sing are what makes it possible for me to walk the streets of Miami. I think my role has always been to destroy the myth on both sides.''

Many in the crowd on Wednesday spoke of how Varela's visit symbolized Miami at a turning point, that after decades the wall against interaction with Cuba was beginning to crumble.

``This was the first encuentro (encounter),'' Romeu said. Almost four years ago, Romeu was fired from her job at MTV Latino for using the company's fax to send information on a trip she was organizing to see Varela play in Havana. Now Varela had come to them. ``This is the reunification of people born into something they had nothing to do with creating,'' she said. ``It justifies my faith in Miami that we are going to create the new Cubans, that we are going to reconcile our generation. The timing is right.''

Local businessman and producer Hugo Cancio echoed her words.

``This is the right moment,'' said Cancio, who says he will present Cuban music groups Issac Delgado, Camerata Romeu and Gema 4 in Miami in mid-April, along with a film on Cuban pop group Los Zafiros, which he co-produced with people on the island. ``The majority of the Cuban community is tired of the political pressure from a small, hostile group of powerful Cuban exiles who have put obstacles in the way of art and culture. If there is something all Cubans took with us when we left the island, no matter what our political views, it is our culture and our roots. We want to take this everywhere, and we have the right to do that.''

Jordan Levin regularly covers dance, performing arts and pop culture for The Herald.