Silvio Rodríguez in search of the blue unicorn between Papito Serguera and Orishas

Silvio Rodríguez Domínguez (73) is one of the most important poets of the twentieth century Cuban, singer-songwriter of faithful crowds in various parts of the planet, millionaire for his lyric, politically committed to his relationship with Fidel Castro Ruz, universal and timid Cuban and majadero until the end that sometimes the coconut skates, as is happening now with the use by Orishas of his convincing hope.

Orishas has sinned of indelicacy by not having previously contacted Rodriguez and having negotiated with the author a mutually advantageous formula for both. Respecting the creation of others and the figures is part of the ethical catalog of true artists and thus they should not have acted.

Silvio has lacked tact to have called by phone or written to Orishas and agreed to an exit. He has the right to complain, but he knows that his criteria have specific weight and he should not have opened that gap because it results in the old litigation that tears Cuba apart.

Contrary to what many Cubans think and repeat, I hope it is not a love song nor was it inspired against Fidel Castro Ruz; The muse of that legacy theme of the new Cuban trova is Jorge “Papito” Serguera, one of the most pìntresque commanders of the Cuban revolution, and that one day he provoked the young Silvio, telling him that it was a shame that his talent wasted him in songs Rare that nobody understood.

That happened when Commander Serguera applied the orders of Fidel and Raúl Castro Ruz to the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television (ICRT): Zero Beatles, zero fags and tortillas, zero hairy ones with tight swabs, etc., etc.

If Serguera was the muse, Haydée Santamaría was the godmother of Silvio Rodríguez and the rest of the young singer-songwriters who gathered around the Nueva Trova. and whose songs dazzled many young people of the 70s and 80s, when Cuba also sold the image of olive socialism, stripped of Stalinism and other harmful practices of communism made in the USSR.

Old age cheats memory and Cuba is a country with little retention. Silvio Rodríguez has every right in the world to claim, even, to charge his Copyright for the use of Hopefully in the controversial issue of Orishas, ​​if he so decided.

But it moves the just outrage in someone who has legitimately earned his money, in someone who may have calculated the millions he stopped earning when Cuba exported it in a wrong two for the price of one, along with another large Cuban lyric, Pablo Milanés and someone, who for consistency and talent, is generously presumed with youthful sins.

It would be necessary to read the fine print of the Copyright Law and ask well-founded experts jurists to determine whether Orihas should pay the composer of Ojalá or not. Whenever Silvio decided to establish a lawsuit, a circumstance that does not clarify in his response to the Orishas group.

Orishas errs in his response to Silvio because once one has been wrong, it is sensible to call the offended person, apologize and not air another confrontation – one more – among Cubans, this is particularly painful because it occurs between people who are presumed to be culture of coexistence and respect.

A pity that Silvio now appears with that claim, when he never raised his voice against discrimination that implied not recognizing Copyright to Cuban exiled composers, whose songs appeared on EGREM records with the acronym of D.R.

They had simply ceased to exist, had been erased by decree of the pharaoh (Castro) who lowered the tomato (party card) to Buffalo Bill (Silvio); as Sara Gonzalez said in a rehearsal at that time in Carlos Marx.

A pity that Orishas has not recognized his mistake in time and has avoided us all the sainete that – inevitably – has become politicized because a country frustrated in the political essentials does not have higher levels than noisy and nearby skaters.

Days before, Silvio had surprised his own and strangers accusing the Communist Party of Cuba of censoring the independent media with the creation of a blacklist that published the web of Radio Progreso and that later a refugee woman in Madrid tried to rinse by saying that It was an occurrence of intermediate cadres.

Silvio Rodríguez Domínguez, in addition to having an exciting lyric, is an expert in giving one of lime and another of sand in front of the designs of power, with which he has lived as a slaughterhouse with kite, in the guara with Fidel and distant with Raúl, who appreciates the Bulgarian melody and the fine cockerels more than the songwriters’ skins.

Orishas does not need a bronchium with Silvio to shine with its own light. Both are part of the Cuban culture, which should always be a place of encounter and hug and never a dispute no matter how big the egos are.

Silvio is still consistent with that boy who arrived in San Antonio de los Baños to settle in Siboney, where there are days when he finds his first blue Unicorn and others when he becomes stupid and pretends to ignore that the heroes no longer graze in his garden ; while awaiting that total silence of exterminating angel with glasses, guitar, pitusa and rolled up shirt.

Oh melancholy!

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