There’s a brutal machinery operating from urban music against the sovereignty and dignity of the Cuban people, Argentine rapper Daniel Devita assured today, after releasing his song Vale más, where he repeats his commitment to the island.

In conversation with Prensa Latina, the musician also known as Double D, assured that the actions against the Caribbean nation must be forcefully exposed and denounced, something that he does from art.

A minute on your feet is worth more than a lifetime on your knees, reads the chorus of the song recently released on digital platforms, where it pays tribute to the National Hero of Cuba, José Martí (1853-1895), whose anniversary 170^th would have been on the 28^th of this month.

We are made of Homeland or Death, we will win! he urges in the song, which also questions those who sell themselves and give in their country to the empire that blocks them.

Besides he calls the true people to raise their hands and defend their land.

They are a disgrace, a huge scam. They are not artists; they are the ones who run errands for the mafia. (...) Who is backing them up or are they hostages? They don’t have a life and certainly don’t have homeland, he affirms when referring to those who support the U.S. aggression against Cuba.

Mr. Devita assured that the economic, commercial, and financial blockade with which Washington intends to suffocate the island is not a matter of ideological debate, since governments of all political colors condemn it year after year at the General Assembly of the United Nations because it violates human rights.

That machine has artists as spokespersons, who on the one hand demand greater sanctions, they gather and support the main defenders of blackmail measures in the United States, and then cynically deny their existence. That’s why we speak of those who "pretend innocence after deliberately cause harm," he said.

Looking at this panorama, he expressed the importance of art as a form of struggle and resistance.

That’s the path I chose many years ago. Music has historically been the testimony of the oppressed, a valve for social tensions, a complaint, and a tool for change. We cannot allow the market and the cultural industry, controlled by very few people, to decide what art is and what it should be used for, he asserted.

When, due to direct extortion or self-censorship by the protagonists, the lyrics don’t say anything that could upset corporations, we become a product lacking in authenticity and that should not be the rule of our sector, he added.

On the other hand, he warned about “a new phenomenon that is colonialism singing straight. If earlier the strategy of the North American and European factories was distraction, empty content and the apparent invalidation of politics, today we see them shouting through rooftops”.

“They praise the genocidal country; they give concerts to the Venezuelan opponent Juan Guaidó and the narco-paramilitaries on the border between Colombia and Venezuela; a scoundrel like Ricardo Montaner celebrates the coup d'état in Bolivia and those who until a few years ago denounced the attacks against Cuba today sing to terrorists assuring that we are about to see the end of the Revolution”, he said.

Although they want to make fascism fashionable and have all the resources at hand, their speech is so gross -and the intentions behind it even more- that they have it hard. It’s a debate that must be dealt with vehemently and in the corresponding field. We are not going to leave culture in the hands of these criminals without a fight, he concluded.

Translated by Amilkal Labañino / CubaSí Translation Staff