The rap of Los Aldeanos as political praxis from the void

Abstract

arious researchers have been in charge of the analysis of our object, among which are Yesenia Selier Crespo, Charlie D. Hankin, Lara López de Jesús and others. The disciplines and approaches from which rap has been approached are also varied. However, after contrasting these approaches with the historical-concrete conditions in which it has been gestated and developed, we advocate a different interpretation of rap, not as a product of the spectacle society, nor as a social criticism or protest of the capitalist regime. , but as political praxis from the void. Louis Althusser, in Machiavelli and We, tells us that any political movement that aspires to transform the prevailing production system needs to be located “outside” of it and, at the same time, generate the objective conditions (means) for said company (end). And since Cuban rap arises from the contradiction between communality, marginality and blackness, it is, therefore, a movement with particular interests, "external" to the system and, in itself, political. Thus, Los Aldeanos, one of the main rap groups in Cuba, are the most valuable example of the above: they maintain a critical stance towards capitalism and US imperialism, while remaining in an “external” position of the Cuban regime; but, at the same time, they generate the objective conditions for the achievement of their ends, under a particular characteristic: the underground, that is, the struggle for the non-institutionalization of this cultural expression by the State.