March 5, 2020 • 53 mins
Havana, Cuba is a place you should try to get to and if you do get there, be ready to be immersed in a culture that is all about getting by. In this episode, I'll talk about some of my — let's say eccentric experiences there and the sort of things you should be, yes, prepared for, but also just as importantly, open to, from restaurants facing shortages of supplies, to very limited internet service, to getting hustled for cigars. It's all a part of this larger picture of a people who, despite what they lack, are happy and friendly and welcoming.
Speaking of hustle, I'll also talk to Afro-Cuban sensation Cimafunk about recording in France and where he likes to grab a drink when he's home.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
I'm Hugh Atchison and this is the Passenger from my
Heart Radio. I travel a lot for work as a chef.
I'm really interested in what makes these places tick. So
I'll give you my take. I'm where to go, what
to do, what I find intriguing, and we'll also talk
about immersing yourself from the culture and what it means
to go to a place as a visitor as a passenger,
(00:32):
and so this show is about that where we'll talk
about that place later on. We'll talk to Afro Cuban
musician Seema Funk, and I'll get feedback on what I've done,
where I should have gone. Get the travel show. My
name's Hugh Atchison. Let's do this. I'm standing on a
(00:54):
corner in Center of Havana with a friend. We're both tourists.
We've arrived last night. I'm kind of a tourist. I
have a connection to Cuba, which i'll get too later.
And it's a beautiful day and we're wandering over to
Old Havanna. We're in Centro. Centro is just to the
west of Old Havana. We're waiting for the cross walk
(01:15):
the light to turn, and a man comes up. He's young,
he's he's probably in his mid twenties. He's very excited,
and he's he's excited just to talk to us. He says,
where are you from? I say Canada. He says where
do you say? And I say, oh, we're staying at
a beautiful little Airbnb mini hotel called Via Juanita in Invadado,
(01:37):
the neighborhood over to the west. He goes on to say, well,
it's a really special day in Havana because years back, Fidel,
that's the castro. He made it possible for scar workers,
which comprise a lot of the population of Havana, in
a lot of ways. He made it possible for them
to take home cigars from the factory at cost and
(01:58):
sell them for a slight mark. And this would be
a lot cheaper. But it's only done one day a year,
maybe two. And I'm like, wow, this, uh, this seems
like a bit of a ruse. But I'm not. I'm
I'm kind of buying into it because maybe I'm just nice,
(02:18):
maybe I'm gulpable. And he goes on to say, and
this is a brilliant little aside. He's he makes it
more a little more palpable and relatable and he suddenly says, oh,
it's it's also salsa festival tonight, and you should go down.
They'll be dancing and and it's the music is amazing.
And that's to take away from the possible ruse. But
(02:39):
I like the ruse so a bit him at you. Remember,
I've told him where I'm staying and where I'm from.
We walked three blocks down in the general direction of
where he was pointing, towards where the apartments would be
where people would sell cigars. Not really in effact, I
wasn't really thinking of buying cigars, but it kind of
(02:59):
was the back of my head. We're in Havana. I
could smoke a cigar now. And again, suddenly a man
comes up in the middle of the street, another man.
He's older than that, he's maybe around forty, and he says, hey, Canada,
I'm your neighbor. I live next to you where you're
staying in the hotel via Anita. And I say, wow,
(03:21):
that's really a strange that you're now in Centro and
I'm kind of a little suspicious, but I'm also excited
to be there. And when you're excited about something and
you're you're happy in a situation, I don't think you
really see the ruse. And anyways, even if it was
a ruse, it was innocuous. So the man shuffles us
(03:44):
along to an apartment and and there's a number of
people in the apartment. They're all selling boxes of cigars,
and they all have the proper seals and stamps. Whether
they're really proper, I don't know. I'm not a counterfeiter
or um. I don't work for the Department the Treasury
to spot these things. And I do buy some cigars.
(04:07):
I calla together the money in my pocket out to
pasos um and make the transaction and walk out and
realize that I've probably overpaid for cigars and that this
is probably a ruse. But it rus only is a
scam when it really gets to you, when it really
affronts you. But it can be respected when it's part
(04:31):
of a way of life the culture has had to
adopt just to get by. Havana, Cuba. What a place.
Cuba's got a really interesting history and it's a place
that you should go if you can. It's not the
easiest place to get to anymore because of sanctions and
restrictions on US travel there. I have two passports. It
(04:52):
makes it a lot easier. Cuba was founded as a
Spanish settlement in fifteen eleven by Diego Alasquez and Alaska
has founded the settlements of Barcoa, Bayamo, Santiago to Cuba
and Havana. Havana was actually founded twice. It was literally
in swamp land and later how to be moved um
(05:13):
to its current location, which is this beautiful Walden city
UM that's dilapidated. And when you talk about dilapidated cities,
the nice word for it is it's developed a patina
and it really has UH. But the patinas on the
all these amazing old Spanish architecture and falling down buildings
(05:33):
interspersed with UH horrible lea like just brutalist Russian architecture
because of the really Russian dominance UH since the revolution.
It is a society that can get by with nothing.
And that's why you should go there in a lot
(05:55):
of ways, because it's despite hardship and despite every hurdle
put in front of them every day, these are people
who are innately happy and it's a really beautiful place
to go. When we talk about food, and obviously I'm
(06:15):
a chef, so a lot of this will always focus
on food. Um. You talk about a cuisine of necessity
again when you go to Miami and eat Cuban food
of Oursailles, Uh, it is a cuisine of opulence and
tons of food and and maybe that's a expat reaction
to the limited access to food and product that they
(06:38):
have now in Cuba. Post revolution, much of the Ukrainian
culture and the agriculture of Cuba was dug up to
replace with sugarcane um for a production of sugar that
would be sold to Russia. UM. And they didn't really
foresee the breaking down of the Soviet Union in I
don't know. I guess a number of people did, UM,
(07:00):
but I don't take the Russians hidden or did the Cubans.
And that really threw Cuba into a a spell of
trying to figure out what they were going to do
with their economy UM, and the economy was was really
pivoted towards tourism. But at that point in time, you
can't really subside on sugarcane UH unless you learn how
(07:20):
to eat protein out of rum um, which you can't. So.
Within the confines of food, the old school of food
is very Caribbean. It's not spicy food. Uh. It's very
based on plantains and rice and beans and pork uh.
Simple breads uh and UK and things like this and
(07:43):
those products still exist. But because of the non abundance
of things in Cuba, you run into issues with eating
on a fairly regular basis, and the food quality is
is up and down. It's you have to kind of
lower it down from a Michelin Star. Its perspective to
(08:03):
I need to eat something that's going to fill my
belly um and and that you you definitely can do that.
There were many restaurants that we found that were really great. UH.
There was a place called Salchi Pizza. Salchi Pizza is
a tiny, little almost kiosk of a restaurant that is
(08:24):
by its name UH, is around bread and pizza. It's
it's kind of a bakery that does good food. It's
right near the University of Havana. The man is Alberto Gonzalez,
and Alberto was a chef in Italy for a long time.
He had a Michelin Star in Italy. He's Cuban uh,
and he moved back to Cuba, and so he opens
(08:47):
this little place and like anything else, it is a
cobble together, simple place. It's tiny. The food is great.
But when I went in, he was talking to a
woman who turned out to be a classical piano and
one of the most revere pianists in Cuba. Uh. She's
an expatch, she's a brit Um and she had lived
there for years and years, and they were just conversing,
(09:09):
having fun and laughing and big belly laughs. And there
seemed to be not much activity in the way of food.
And that's because I asked Alberto what was going on
and whether we could eat, and he said, no flower today.
Flowers kind of intrinsically important to making a pizza and
baked goods. But he suddenly went behind and started guessing
up food for us, because, um, regardless of what they have,
(09:32):
hospitality is really at the core of everything. People like
Alberto and every Cuban I I've met, is all about
as they are, about providing something. So he provided the
big spread of spelt breads and different types of things
with no flower in them. Um, and it was great,
It was it was interesting, and again it it identified
this idea that working with nothing, they will still provide
(09:55):
something because that is what they do at the end
of it, he wanted to refuse payment. I paid him anyway.
But again, these are people with next to nothing who
will give you the shirt off their back and feed
you with nothing, and it is such a beautiful culture
in that way. Well, we think about Cuba, we think
(10:24):
about a number of things. We think about Ernest Hemingway.
We think of the Dell, we think of che Guevara,
we think of Rum, we think of Dhakris, we think
of Cuban music because of the Buenavista Social Club. But
all those are tips of very interesting iceberg. So you
(10:46):
can learn a lot about a place, I think by
going and getting a drink. One of the most favorite bars,
or the famous bars, is Uh Floridita, which is Hemingway's
favorite bar in the Havanah. To me, it's good. It's
become a bit of a tourist trap in some ways,
and there's usually a small band. As you walk in,
(11:08):
it's very brightly lit. They make you a dakri or
a kuba libre and you kind of get in and
get out. There are better places to go in Havana,
and there was one called El Cafe, which was amazing.
(11:30):
This one that we went to a lot uh El
Cafe was as just on the corner of a park,
and the park is really interesting because it's the parks
within Havana are kind of the centers for WiFi and
you buy a little WiFi card for like a couple
(11:50):
of pasos um and they're usually sold by people in
the park who bought them of the government office and
then resell them reverse light profit. Within the park, you'll
have no trouble getting you log on through the system
and get onto pretty much the slowest snail WiFi system
on the planet. But all these people are on their
phones kind of getting updated on their worlds from these parks,
(12:12):
because otherwise WiFi and internet connectivity within the island is
really restricted and next to none. Your cell phone generally
won't work unless your own WiFi there, so plan accordingly.
But sometimes it's nice to travel to a place and unplug,
and in Cuba you're forced to unplug um and I
(12:33):
think that's really important aspect of Havana. Now it's few
and far between that sometimes you find a place that
you just feel so at home when you're traveling. I mean,
I think it's key to good traveling that you always
find a place where you feel at home. Maybe it's
entirely different than what you're used to, but that you
feel like you belong there. And whether it's a restaurant,
(12:54):
a cafe, a coffee shop, a library, whatever it is,
you need to open yourself up to finding that place.
And I found one in Havana that is that to me,
which is called El Dandy U E L. And then
next where d A N d Y. It's right next
to Crystal Square. That's this kind of two room place
with a door guy outside. It's not a fancy bar,
(13:16):
but it's kind of the tons of a fema everywhere.
UM just interesting, kind of shabby chic type of bar place.
And but they have really good food as well. It's
really active and and youthful and interesting and and just
is a ton of fun. So El Dandy, which is
(13:36):
right in old Havana and it is um and right
next to El Dandy UM or just across the street,
it's Villa Gas is the street is a store that
designs fashion and art and it has amazing prints and
things like that, and it's called Clendestina. Clendestina also has
(13:59):
a app that they produced and it's just a curated
map of what to do, where to eat, uh, nightlife, parks, museums,
what to do on the weekends, which beaches to go to,
and it's in this amazing hand drawn map that they sell.
So that's called Clandestina. Clandestina also has just amazing art
(14:19):
prints that you can buy. They're really inexpensive and they're
beautifully silk screen prints. We went to another place, uh
that I'm blanking the name of where it was just
a printing house and you wander in and a knock
on the door and the guy let you in, and
they were just it is a print silk screen print
shop that was huge and really old, and this man
was showing us around and he spoke no English, and
(14:41):
I was telling him to watch out behind him, that
it was hot and his case would be ready soon
because again I only know his kitchen Spanish. But they
just had beautiful, stunning prints, just stacks and stacks of
different runs of different prints and you can buy those.
So you just have to go out and find things
and and realize that it there are things there of interest.
(15:04):
Staying there is very inexpensive. There are lots of airbnbs.
Now there's vr b o is active there with Airbnb
as well. There's small hotels. They're the large government hotels
that are beautiful and interesting. Uh. They tend to be
more expensive though, and a little more um not maybe
(15:25):
as fancy in the interior as the exteriors exhibit. I
played a stated place called Via Junita just recently, as
I told the man on the street, and it was
a beautiful, absolutely amazing place that supplied breakfast every morning.
They would get you whatever they want. It was inexpensive,
the sweetest people running it. Um. It was totally secure.
And let's talk about safety. When we travel, we always
(15:47):
are interested about safety. Um. I don't think anything would
ever happen to you outside of getting sold cigars in Cuba. Uh.
There the the respect for tourism is innate in the culture,
and the penalties and punishment for messing with tourists or
violence are beyond the pale of what the average cubansism
(16:08):
would want to go to as a result, So it
is a place to go. And in this instance I
had gone down with my friend to go and see.
There is an amazing jazz culture there and they have
a jazz festival Havana each year. Uh. And this so
we went down for Jazz Fest ostensibly and to eat
(16:28):
food and have drinks and wander around a city that
is so historically important to the Caribbean and to me
as a person as well. The personal connection I have
to Cuba as an odd one. My family were my
father's said were bankers in the Caribbean, and my father
(16:48):
was actually born as a Canadian. He was born in
Cuba and raised there, uh though despite he went to
boarding school in Canada, he was pretty much raised in
Havana up until the revolution, where they left shortly before.
And my dad is an economist and for years went
back and taught capitalist economics of the University of Havana
on invitation of the government. So this is a strange
(17:10):
place to go back to for me. So even with
that personal connection, the question often comes up as do
why you should go to a certain place? Um, I
live in a world where I actually want to go
to every place because I believe in this world, and
I believe in seeing the different cultures and how they
(17:30):
work and how they interact, and believe in trying to
diagnose the smiles on people's faces or the the way
they cobble themselves through the day, and Havana is a
particularly interesting example of a people with such amazing amount
of spine and wherewithal that they've been able to craft
out of deer, nothing in existence that makes them happy.
(17:53):
And I think philosophically as an outsider, coming into that
is really really interesting, and it's easy to see that
it's not so easy to get there. So let's talk
about that after the break. I'm Hugh Atchison, this is
(18:21):
the passenger, and we're trying to get to Cuba. So
all you have to do to get to Cuba years ago,
up until the Obama administration changed travel restrictions and the
ability for airline carriers to carry humans from the US
to Havana. Before that happened, you'd have to fly from
(18:44):
Europe or another Central American or South American country or
Caribbean country or Canada. Canada is a huge, huge tourist market,
uh for Cuba, and because and a huge tourist Cuba
as a huge tourist market as well for Europeans, and
you see this a lot when you're there. Still, but
(19:06):
US Americans can travel to Cuba a little more readily
than before up until very recently, so you really want
to stay abreast on the current laws of what's happening.
But generally up until Trump, you're jiggered it a little bit,
changed around a little bit and put a clamping down
(19:27):
up until that point. And these are the two times
I've been all you have to do with state that
you were doing research and you were fine, And I
am doing research because I'm doing food research. My dad's
an economist, he'd be doing economic research, so everything or
journalists can go, etcetera, etcetera. You you and that just
needs to claim on your return when you're turning to
(19:48):
the States as to what your reasoning was for being there.
On entry, you need a visa, and that visa is
granted at the airport from your departure point. I flew
most recently from Lanta Tofana. It's under two hours and
was very inexpensive. Upon landing at the airport, you go
through customs in Cuba, which is absolutely hilarious because of
(20:11):
the uniforms of the Cuban customs people. First of all,
it's generally they're all women, uh and they wear these
like fishnet stockings and very short skirts and it looks
like a Bond movie, uh, in like in nine seventies
Bond film um of the like The Beautiful Congunist Women
(20:33):
or something. It's it's very strange. So you get through,
it's a very hustle and bustle airport. Uh it's not
a very big airport, but it's very hustle and bustle.
People are going to be trying to approach you and
take you anywhere you want in this car or that
car and go talk to that guy, or I can
get you this and that comes at you full throttle.
If you do not speak Spanish at all, you will
(20:53):
have a little bit of trouble keeping up. But it's
amazing what you can do with just a little bit
of Spanish. My Spanish is really based on kitchen Spanish.
So I can say hot duck and behind you very
quickly and effectively, and then I can say guacamole, which
is I don't even know if that's actually a Spanish sort.
But as soon as you get there, it's about a
half an hour drive from the airport. Do not rent
(21:16):
a car in Cuba. I don't think Americans can even
really rent a car in Cuba. Transport is very easy.
From the airport, you can get a classic which are
the old gelopes that we've talked about, or you can
get more modernized somewhat modernized taxi that I'll take you
there um and and take you to wherever you are staying.
Uh and again it's about a half an hour ARRIVEE.
(21:38):
Getting there is really easy. It's it's wonderful and it's
and it's fun, and you have no excuse not to go.
It's two hour flight. You get a visa at the
airport that you pay for. Really, that's it. Other than that.
At the times that I've been in the past few years,
I could just say that I was doing research, which
I always am in the food studies and food culture
(21:59):
and under any cuisines of different places. Um, you can
go on a trip for religious purposes and academics and
things like that. And the Trumpet administration has just sent
down on that a little bit, and we're still trying
to figure out what that means. But right now we're
still into the assumption that you can pretty well get
to Cuba. It is a flight. During the Obama administration,
(22:21):
they did uh allow flights to go directly from the
States to Havana, and so I was on a delta
flight recently the last time, I went very easy under
two hours in your door door. Uh. That two hours
brings you, though Cuba geographically is just off the coast
of Florida, it brings you to a place that is
(22:42):
completely different from where you left from. It's completely different.
You land at the airport and it is hustle and
bustle and people trying to um get you to ride
on their cars. And they're all these old gelopis. American
cars have been cobbled together or they're LATAs because of
the Russian dominance. And you drive past a serve, a
(23:05):
gray infrastructure of Cuba which is mostly sugarcane. Now in
a half an hour drive into the city of Havana,
there are numbers ways of being transported. Your feet are
probably the best means of transport. Havana is not very hilly,
UH so you can definitely get around on that if
you're willing and able. The other way is a sort
(23:27):
of shared taxi like a lot of UH and a
lot is the Rushing Car Company UM pretty much known
as the UH, the longest living crappy car of Russia. Ever,
UM how they're still getting parts for a lot of
I have no idea but how they get parts for
anything in Cuba is really open to the discussion, and
(23:48):
I have no idea how they do this. The other
so there's those taxis which are kind of shared taxis,
so meaningly, it's a small car and you might be
jumping in with another family of three in the back
seat and you're kind of share earning the cost of
it and then getting dropped off in some you know
shared point. Um. There are busses around town. I did
not use the buses, And then you can use private
(24:09):
taxis which the hotel can call for you more gonna
be like the toilets of the world. And then there
are the the old classics, and the classics are these, Um,
if you're prone to getting sort of carsick in the
backseat because of uh gas emissions and exhaust, you probably
(24:30):
shouldn't ride them, because they're the creakiest old you know
forwards from the fifties that have been cobbled back together
over the years and run. They are so much fun
to be in, and but it's they There is much
fluidity in pricing of these things, so you have to
be prepared to bargain. Cuban bargain on everything. It's nick.
(24:54):
You know it's expected. If they say it's gonna be
twenty kok and you say will how about five, suddenly
you're in it for ten and you're going somewhere. So
it's just it's just how it works. Then there are
the little cocos. Cocos are crazy cocos look like yellow
football helmets with a small motorcycle attached on the front,
(25:16):
operated by some guys screeching through the roads. They're three wheelers.
They're terrifying but exhilarating. So if you like roller coasters
and fun, they're they're they're great. Um, and they are
really inexpensive as well, so getting around is not very expensive.
(25:42):
So what to do in Cuba. Otherwise, there are plenty
of wonderful museums. There's a contemporary art gallery. Um. All
these things are government run. A lot of the bigger
restaurants or government run, they're not very good. Um. But
back to the museums. There's a wonderful museum of sort
of q in military history that's really interesting. Um. It's
(26:03):
definitely propaganda laden, but so is our side of that equation.
So it's a good balance to go in there and
see what what The Bay of Pigs was all about
and um the rise of Fidel and uh and and
what Czech clavera ment to the whole equation of that.
It's a palpably interesting story of revolution um that that
(26:25):
is uh interesting to follow. And that's the Museo de
Lara bolon Um, the Casa de la Cottura, the plaza
that's where we went. It's the cultural sort of house
uh and that was the sort of home base of
the jazz Fest. Jazz Fest was a phenomenally interesting festival.
It spans the different styles of music um in in
(26:48):
the sphere of jazz, and if you're into jazz, it
is really renowned as one of the best fast jazz
vessels you can get to. And it's at a number
of different venues. So we wandered around and and had
passes to all of them, and that was great. In advance,
it was very difficult to book tickets for the Jazz
Festival online uh Cuba does not work that well online.
(27:09):
The neighborhood of Old havana Um, which is really what's
really depicted and when we talk about the old cars
and the gelopes and Old Havannah is really where all
the um the places are that you really want to
hang out at um and in what you see in
in one of this a social club, you know the
album cover with the old car. Most of the museums
(27:32):
are going to be an old Havanna. Uh So most
of the nightlife is really gonna be in Centro. Some
of the nightlife and good cafes will be in old Havanna.
But I rarely found like the youth culture and uh
the the culture that I wanted to see was more
in Centro. Um in the arts and museums again, I
(27:53):
talked about the Museo de Laro Volocion, which is amazing.
That is the armory of the April ninth museum. Dates
in Cuba are are really important and they'll come up
and you just want to immerse yourself in the history
of of a place before you go to a little
bit and it will make a lot more sense. The
Plaza de la Revolution is really uh interesting. And then
(28:18):
just walking along the Malaccone Malicone, which is this the
walled area on looking over to the ocean and then
the island. Uh. The the old fortress on the other
side of the of the canal is really beautiful and
interesting during and the Malicone tends to be the place
where Cubans really assembled during the evenings on listening on
(28:39):
the weekends, and it's kind of thing. They party there
and it's their kind of open air space and it's
it's beautiful in in that way. Um, as you go
towards Centro, Centro was the place and I've touched on
it already. Um which is called Fabrica. Fabrica has a
restaurant it's very lauded next door called Guarida, and it's okay. Um,
(29:07):
I wouldn't say it was. It was great. Sometimes it's
really interesting as to why things get the amount of
press they do and whether they really are good and
worthy of it. So instead of going to La Guerida,
I would go actually go to Fabrica and eat at
the food stalls within Fabrica. And again, Fabrica is this
crazy like art gallery show space. Fabrica has four music venues,
(29:32):
it's got ten bars, it's got tons of art galleries
and it's all in this one sort of it would
it's kind of like the Williamsburg of Havanna. Um, and
it's kind of hipster cool in a lot of ways.
So two dollars is the admittance fee, and they give
you a card and the card is notated every time
(29:53):
you get food or a drink, and then you pay
when you leave. UM. And so transaction, all the transactions
that are in one place so they can keep up
with it accounting wise. Um. And there's tons of security there. Uh.
I wouldn't get out of hand there, they'll probably I
don't know what they do, but yeah, um, but really interesting,
(30:16):
wonderful place. Another thing you really should do in Cuba
is get a taxi or get a classic and go
to the beaches. And the beaches are amazing in Cuba.
When you look at the island of Cuba, it's pretty
much all beaches. It's an island. They're beautiful beaches everywhere.
(30:37):
And the beaches that people tend to go to easily
outside Havannah are twenty minutes away, half an hour, forty
five minutes away, and they're just a sequential grouping of
beaches on the northern coast, just east of Havana. We
went to one called Playta Santa Maria. That was great.
Their little cafes there near the beach you can usually
(30:59):
get to, uh, like they'll sell you beer and stuff
on the beach. All you need to do is grab
a hotel towel or um you know, Airbnb towel from
the room, pack some water and uh you know that's
that's all you need and a little bit of money
and you'll be there and it. The beaches are unless
its specific holiday, they're not very crowded. They're utterly beautiful beaches.
(31:21):
The waters amazing, um and there it's safe to get
out there. Don't if you're driving your own car, which
again I don't think they're Americans can really rent carris
in Cuba. Don't speed Uh. Cuban police and military have
a lot of time on their hands to pull over speeders.
They just seem to do it all the time by
driving out there and watching people getting pulled over. Um so.
(31:43):
But but there's no excuse not to just rainbow up
the coast a little bit and experience these beaches that
are just amazing. Let's talk about the basics of the
economy and how it works. There are two different types
(32:04):
of currency in Cuba, and the differences the Kuk and
the coupe. So this is the financial system and kok
is the convertible currency, somewhat indexed the U. S. Dollar.
But the government taxes the exchange of it when you
exchange US dollars relatively highly so one kuk see you
see equals eighty seven cents American approximately. At the time
(32:25):
that I went, a coup is the Cuban paso utilized
by Cubans. It's not necessary to have it. Um. One
kuk approximately equals coupe. UM. Hotels are generally large. The
one I stayed up with tiny, it was four rooms,
but beautiful rooms. UM. There are other boutique hotels that exist,
(32:47):
and they're more popping up all the time. UM. And
it's interesting, like how how things are broken down after
years of communism and and there's still communist um. But
it's just interesting. Now Cubans can own property. Uh, they
can have small businesses, they can own their own restaurants
(33:08):
that are not that are like palladars, which is kind
of the privately owned restaurants. Uh. Pallader culture is started
by like literally hidden restaurants in somebody's basement or living
room or whatever that would be conducting kind of black
market restaurants. Now it's kind of accepted that those things exist. Um.
With tourism. UM. I talked to one guy who was
working in a cafe on a visitor a couple of
(33:30):
years ago, and I talked to him for a long time.
He was a waiter there and he had he told
me that he was a doctor as well, but he
was working as a waiter because he would make a
lot more money. And this is the problem that we
have inherently when you visit a place that's having brain drain,
is that you're exporting your talent because they just the
economy can't support the people that they're training there. But
(33:50):
that and brain drain is is real in Cuba. And
that's why people, you know, try and try and get
across to to Miami, is to to make some money,
to get by um. And this is you know, again,
I'm not a historian, I'm not an academic. I'm a chef.
This is just my perspective. This is Hugh on the line.
(34:15):
I have an amazing Cuban musician who's not just a
Cuban musician. He's from Havannah. Well he's not from Havanna,
but he's from Pinar del Rio, um. But he lives
in Havana now, but he travels the world doing music
under the name of Sima Funk. And it's Eric and
Glecias Rodriguez Eric. Good to have you. Yeah, how are you?
(34:36):
I'm grateful. Yeah, you're in You're in France recording an EP.
That's very cool. How do the how do the French
do the French understand off for Cuban music? Yeah, but
he's a lot of Cuban everywhere, so everywhere that you
go you found it. That's amazing. You were a medical
student before, so you've always been a musician. But you're
a medical student. What makes you decide to fully go
(34:59):
into music full time. One of the reasons that my
family they were put for the whole system, so they are,
you know, the prestigious of being good in that. So
at the beginning when I started to study, I just
start for you know, more for the family stuff. But
I realized at some point that I will not be
a good doctor. So at the same time I get
(35:21):
more involved in the music. I meet right Fernande in Lavana.
I see the first big crazy life show that IVER
seen and when I when I see that, I just
decided to quit the medicine and just moved to the
capital and start to do my own thing, because I
was like crazy trying to get this sensation. Well, you've
been pretty successful in it. You're really the hardest musician
(35:43):
in Cuba right now and around the world representing Afro
Cuban music. And the music is great. It's so contemporary,
so full of life and and and just and just
funky interesting stuff. Not but you played uh, so many
(36:11):
shows in the last uh and you're going to play
so many shows from this year. But New Orleans jazz Fest,
Playboy jazz Fest, Lola Poulos, Argentina, Lollapool, Chile. Does that?
Does that like? Does that make you happy? Or is
it like, Uh, there's that amazing place in Cuba. There's
(36:32):
fassica Um which I went too many times in Havannah,
Fabrica dels Artes, the the arts compound, and you played
a huge show there that was like the most popular
show there ever. Um was that during jazz Fest or
just a show on its own? It's just just a show?
Was it was the show that I made? But yeah,
(36:52):
it's it's amazing. All this time and all this last year,
I've been crazy. I've been super fast and visible, super positive,
all the answer of the crowd everything is it's like
getting more and more exciting, getting more and more cool
and the music is still born. So it's a happy time,
super happy and playing lallapeloosa and in all these places.
(37:15):
It's amazing. All this is amazing. It's like you don't
you don't seem specifically in this when you start. So
I start like one year and a half, almost two years,
So I never saw that in so quick time I
will be able to play in all these places and
will be start to through creating more and more people around.
It's amazing. It's amazing. And they gets it's just your
(37:36):
talent and and but that that's that's so fast to
be so successful. So back in Havana, Um, what's the
place that you love for food? Like what's the place
that you just you go to when you're at home
and in Havannah? Like where where? Where? Where should people
go these days? Like for really cool food for me?
For me, I'm a big, big, big, crazy final place
(38:00):
calling tot a Peppino. It's like an Italian it's Italian place,
but but they are like a super cool people, super familiar.
So you go there and you have like a real
pasta making any normal prices you know, in not in
a superspensive prices like the normal price for a restaurant
in Havana. So it's amazing and the food is its crazy.
Everything that they cook is like a really fresh and
(38:23):
tasty and the place is amazing, and the people also
so returned that I got there is like having a
good time. I go my mom, I go friend, I
have meeting there. So it's it's my favorite place for food.
Have you been to the Suchi Pizza. No, it's this
amazing chef, really interesting guy who cooked. He's Cuban, but
he cooked in Italy for a long time. He had
(38:44):
a Mitchell and Star and it's just a regular beautiful place,
simple but really good baked goods and pizza and faculta.
But with the day I went there, there was nobody
there because there was no flour in Havana, and so
those type of things in Havana. I mean, is it changing?
Do you do you see an arc towards having being?
(39:06):
I mean, is it changing in a more rapid pace
than it ever has? Brom I'm not sure of of
of how No one real answer, So I don't know
specifically the reality of the of the changing and all
this stuff. But what I feel in the music environment
and in the artists environment is that it's a real
(39:26):
big beginning from many artists. You know, like many people
are like doing more art, are trying to get more
in the in the network. They're trying to produce more.
They're trying to understand better how is work, how they
can like go to more crowd on, how they can
like mad more representative the Cuban kilter in their own art.
(39:47):
The last three years have been like crazy with the art.
Everybody is like pushing and making more music, making more painters, photographer, everybody,
the actors on all the films. Everything is like getting crazy.
The people. It's like doing lot of things, a lot
of things. How important as a place kind of like
an art complex like Fabrica and and to art culture
(40:08):
and Havana super important, super important, like one oasis of
all of us. Even the musicians. We go there, you know,
we go there and you can have like a meeting
place for meet people talk about work or even talk
about whatever life, or you can go for for see
a concert show. Always most part of the thing the
(40:28):
time you're gonna see a show new people that they
are getting involved in them in the media environment, and
you can go and you can go to for it.
You know, you can go to for see plastic arts,
even you can go to two internships or some stuff.
You know. YouTube have been there, Spotify too. Every time
that's something like cool and informative happened, Fabrica always open
(40:53):
the doors for the people can come and work and
enjoy and learn. Now it's it's an amazing place, and
it's such an incubator. It's just such a place that's
so thriving and exciting. But it's so there's so many
different things going on at once. I was there for
jazz Fest last year, and um, you know you do
you wander through and there are four different concerts going on,
and there's so many different places to get food and
(41:15):
a great drink, and it's just and but the youth
there and the young people there was just so I mean,
they just take their art so seriously and and really
hone in on it and and and some of that, uh,
I think a reaction to what they have and and
the fact that there isn't a lot of you know,
uh abundance of you know things, and you know, so
(41:39):
they treasure their their art in that way and and
it just made me so proud to be in in Havana. Yeah,
because and in some point and now that we have
more assets to the information that people start to know.
I didn't knew before, but I start to know now
all the influence of the Cuba arts in the in
the art of the of America, and they are even
from Europe and all this stuff. We have been like
(42:01):
a they Cuba music, the Cuba are the plastic are
the writers in Cuba. I've been like a really been
like a really strong in the culture everywhere. So now
that we have more information that people start to know
down they start to take more focus in the in
the national art, you know, in the the art from Cuba.
So always like young kids, they start to try to
(42:23):
to say something in many different ways, but always trying
to put from the Cuban behavior, the Cuban song, Cuban
people most I mean invent I just found that people
were so proud, I mean, of of their arts and
of their culture. And it was so interesting to see. Yeah,
like if you're if you're out on a Friday night,
(42:44):
you want to go for a good drink, a good cocktail,
where do you go, Yeah, for a good cultail and
where you can go A couple of places. But if
you go to Aco, you can have like a good
stuff there. You know what it is? Essentio isn't the way?
Oh yes, it's a cool place. It's a really good place. Up.
(43:04):
You go up and you can have a good dream.
But also you can go to it's a new place
now calling trees or nine. That is pretty good also
for haveing like good drinks and and yeah, Ferika always
have like good good stuff or drink because they have
different restaurant and different bars, so you can choose whatever
you want. And what what's your favorite beach to go to?
(43:30):
People there? That's amazing. Well that's very cool. Well, good
luck with recording in Paris, and we look forward to
the EP and uh tell everybody one line on why
they should go to Havana. Why they why should they
go to Cuba? Well, you should go to Cuba because
there's people there and it's cool people there and you're
gonna enjoy it definitely. That's right. They're very cool people
(43:54):
there and it's only for me. It's an hour and
forty five minute flight from Atlanta, so it's really easy.
So that's not as far aways. It's super easy. Okay, Sma,
fun go listen to the music. Thank you, bro, take
care of man. I'm Hugh Atchison. You're listening to The
Passenger from my Heart Radio. We'll be back after this
(44:14):
quick break. I'm Hugh Atchison. This is the Passenger. One
good way to prepare for a trip beyond packing your
suitcase is through media and for some recommendations, I'm gonna
(44:36):
hand it over to Jordan run Tug is a former
music editor of People Magazine at VH one dot com
and regular contributor at Rolling Stone and Entertainment Weekly. Run
Tug is also co host of the podcast Rivals, which
is out now from My Heart Radio. If you're interested
in music industry beef, definitely check that out. We have Cubita,
(44:59):
thanks for so many genres of music, the mambo, blero,
rumba just to name a few. They're all amazing on
their own and many are crucial ingredients to rock and roll.
Prior to the trade and bargo set in place by
President Kennedy in nineteen sixty one, Cuban sounds and rhythms
were frequently heard on American radio and were a major
influence on America's own music. For example, the classic Beau
(45:20):
Diddley beat bump bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump,
bump bump. That's essentially a three two clave rhythm, a
common bell pattern found in Afro Cuban music. Now one
of the most famous Cuban musicians in the United States
and anywhere for that matter, was Celia Cruz. She got
her start early. According to legend, her very first pair
(45:40):
of shoes were a gift from a tourist thanking her
for the song she sang. She got her big break
in the early nineteen fifties when she was tapped to
be the lead singer for the popular Cuban big band
Lessonora Marten Serra, sort of like Cuba's answer to the
Duke Ellington Orchestra. She became a fixture on Cuban television
and radio, and even headlined at Havanna's legendary Tropic in
a nightclub. But Fidel Castro Is Uprising in nineteen fifty
(46:03):
nine essentially put an abrupt end to all that. The
Communist government took a dim view of the band and
crews eventually fled the country. She settled in the New
York area, where she played an instrumental role in the
development of a new genre, salsa, literally a sauce. It
blended elements of Afro Cuban music with sounds of the Caribbean,
Puerto Rico, Harlem jazz, plus elements of R and B,
(46:26):
rock and funk to taste, sharing herself the nickname the
Queen of Salsa, thanks to her complete dominance of the
genre over the course of her extensive half century career.
She has some thirty seven studio albums, but a good
place to start is probably Celia and Johnny, her nineteen
seventy four collaborative album with Dominican floutist and percussionist Johnny Pacheco.
But if you're going to Havanna, you should probably throw
(46:47):
up back old school to something from pre revolutionary days
of the Tropicana from her nineteen fifty eight album Cuba's
Foremost Rhythm Singer, I recommend Bella's Cuba. The oppressive communist
(47:13):
regime drove many artists, including Celia Cruz, out of Cuba
in the early nineteen sixties, but a great many stayed
and their lives were not made easy. Castro's government despised
rock and roll. They even had a term for it,
ideological diversionism. He effectively banned the genre and even gave
a lengthy speech about the dangers of blue jeans and
Elvis Presley. But despite Castros ever present fears of being
(47:36):
invaded by the United States, the sounds of the British
invasion could not be stopped. Many Cuban groups with names
like Los Astros, Las Dadas, Las Bocaneros formed in spite
of government harassment. These groups modeled themselves after The Beatles
and the Rolling Stones and played their own version of
amped up Mersey beat, which they called street rock. The
official ban was lifted in nineteen sixty six, but the
(47:56):
government closely monitored these groups in case they were counter
revolution scenaries. Still, a band called Las pacific Goes dared
to hold a public rock concert in ninety seven. It
had to be done with minimal prep to avoid suspicion.
They borrowed instruments and performed with no practice. The two
hours set was recorded and the smuggled out of the country,
making it some of the rarest recorded music of the era.
(48:18):
Tracks from me are available on YouTube, including a cover
of The Kinks All Day and All of the Night.
Give it a spin and remember those who risked all
the rock I intend to be with the daytime. Yes,
(48:39):
I don't want to be with. Cuba has an amazing
history of athleticism, and recently there was a big push
to allow Cuban baseball players finally to be able to
play in Major League Baseball in the States and in Canada.
(48:59):
Uh um. But that that kind of got sinched again
by the Trump administration unfortunately. But before really the amazing
baseball players would defect and uh, as you know, a
lot of people were defecting from dance troops and things
like that, are visiting boxers and uh but I really
(49:20):
want to talk about boxing actually for a little bit,
because Cuba has got a really storied Olympic amateur boxing
uh situation going on. One of the most famous fighters
in Cuba of all time was Telefilo Stevenson. He was amazing,
amazing Olympic boxer. He won three gold medals um and
(49:41):
he he passed away when he was sixty. But he
at one point in his career he was supposed to
fight Muhammad Ali in the States and it was being
promoted and this idea and he was going to get
paid just bankload of money and eventually he just came
to the decision that he didn't want the money and
(50:04):
that he had everything you wanted, which goes a long
way to explaining Cuba to people and Cuban happiness, which
is really innate and really interesting. And he said that
I will not leave my country for one million dollars
or for much more than that. He'd rather be read
than rich. He said, what is a million dollars against
(50:26):
eight million Cubans who loved me? And it's just kind
of it blows your mind that somebody can make that
choice in this day and age, and it's a beautiful
choice to make. And Cuba has long been in the
line for being the autocratic state that it is and
being communists, being heavy handed and imprisoning dissidents and and
(50:50):
they do all those things and and it's been it's
a horrible regime in a lot of ways. But somehow,
out of that there is a core to the even
people that is still so warm and intelligent and savvy
and understanding and empathetic and warm. I don't know, it's
a culture that you can really look at and and
(51:14):
that anything is possible with them. But Telephila Stevenson is
an amazing amazing story going to a place like Havanna. Uh,
you have to be curious. You have to wonder about
other cultures and want to see them and want to
(51:35):
see them interact with each other, and want to see
the strategies on how they plot their day and cobbled
together through life with very little. I think you want
to have a historical mindset that makes you inquisitive as
to what's going on and why they are where they are. Now.
(51:57):
We go to places like Havana and why we go
anywhere because we're curious as humans, and I don't think
there's any you know, I think it's really important to
understand and know the names of your neighbors on your
street where you live. An equivalent, a bigger equivalency to that,
is that it's important to understand your neighbors who are
(52:20):
next to you, who are sixty miles off the coast
of Florida, because they're there and it's a culture that
we know very little about, because we've sanctioned them to
a point where they are completely different culture than us,
and it's restrictive to get there, and we've closed the door.
And I think we need to open the door to
(52:41):
places like Cuba and understand them. You've been listening to
The Passenger. This is a production of I Heart Radio
created by Hugh Atchison and Christopher Hasiotas were produced and
edited by Mike John's. A researcher is Jesselyn Shields and
(53:05):
Christopher hassiotis as our executive producer. Special thanks to Gabrielle Collins,
Crystal Waters, and the rest of the crew. If you
like The Passenger, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.
It helps other people like you find the show. If
you're a local and you want to let me know
what I missed and where should go on my next visit,
Or if you've recently been a Passenger like me and
(53:27):
want to share your experience, hit me up on Instagram
and Twitter at Hugh Atchison. Well more podcasts from my
heart Radio use the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Thanks for listening.
I'm Hugh Atchison and this is the Passenger from my
Heart Radio. I travel a lot for work as a chef.
I'm really interested in what makes these places tick. So
I'll give you my take. I'm where to go, what
to do, what I find intriguing, and we'll also talk
about immersing yourself from the culture and what it means
to go to a place as a visitor as a passenger,
(00:32):
and so this show is about that where we'll talk
about that place later on. We'll talk to Afro Cuban
musician Seema Funk, and I'll get feedback on what I've done,
where I should have gone. Get the travel show. My
name's Hugh Atchison. Let's do this. I'm standing on a
(00:54):
corner in Center of Havana with a friend. We're both tourists.
We've arrived last night. I'm kind of a tourist. I
have a connection to Cuba, which i'll get too later.
And it's a beautiful day and we're wandering over to
Old Havanna. We're in Centro. Centro is just to the
west of Old Havana. We're waiting for the cross walk
(01:15):
the light to turn, and a man comes up. He's young,
he's he's probably in his mid twenties. He's very excited,
and he's he's excited just to talk to us. He says,
where are you from? I say Canada. He says where
do you say? And I say, oh, we're staying at
a beautiful little Airbnb mini hotel called Via Juanita in Invadado,
(01:37):
the neighborhood over to the west. He goes on to say, well,
it's a really special day in Havana because years back, Fidel,
that's the castro. He made it possible for scar workers,
which comprise a lot of the population of Havana, in
a lot of ways. He made it possible for them
to take home cigars from the factory at cost and
(01:58):
sell them for a slight mark. And this would be
a lot cheaper. But it's only done one day a year,
maybe two. And I'm like, wow, this, uh, this seems
like a bit of a ruse. But I'm not. I'm
I'm kind of buying into it because maybe I'm just nice,
(02:18):
maybe I'm gulpable. And he goes on to say, and
this is a brilliant little aside. He's he makes it
more a little more palpable and relatable and he suddenly says, oh,
it's it's also salsa festival tonight, and you should go down.
They'll be dancing and and it's the music is amazing.
And that's to take away from the possible ruse. But
(02:39):
I like the ruse so a bit him at you. Remember,
I've told him where I'm staying and where I'm from.
We walked three blocks down in the general direction of
where he was pointing, towards where the apartments would be
where people would sell cigars. Not really in effact, I
wasn't really thinking of buying cigars, but it kind of
(02:59):
was the back of my head. We're in Havana. I
could smoke a cigar now. And again, suddenly a man
comes up in the middle of the street, another man.
He's older than that, he's maybe around forty, and he says, hey, Canada,
I'm your neighbor. I live next to you where you're
staying in the hotel via Anita. And I say, wow,
(03:21):
that's really a strange that you're now in Centro and
I'm kind of a little suspicious, but I'm also excited
to be there. And when you're excited about something and
you're you're happy in a situation, I don't think you
really see the ruse. And anyways, even if it was
a ruse, it was innocuous. So the man shuffles us
(03:44):
along to an apartment and and there's a number of
people in the apartment. They're all selling boxes of cigars,
and they all have the proper seals and stamps. Whether
they're really proper, I don't know. I'm not a counterfeiter
or um. I don't work for the Department the Treasury
to spot these things. And I do buy some cigars.
(04:07):
I calla together the money in my pocket out to
pasos um and make the transaction and walk out and
realize that I've probably overpaid for cigars and that this
is probably a ruse. But it rus only is a
scam when it really gets to you, when it really
affronts you. But it can be respected when it's part
(04:31):
of a way of life the culture has had to
adopt just to get by. Havana, Cuba. What a place.
Cuba's got a really interesting history and it's a place
that you should go if you can. It's not the
easiest place to get to anymore because of sanctions and
restrictions on US travel there. I have two passports. It
(04:52):
makes it a lot easier. Cuba was founded as a
Spanish settlement in fifteen eleven by Diego Alasquez and Alaska
has founded the settlements of Barcoa, Bayamo, Santiago to Cuba
and Havana. Havana was actually founded twice. It was literally
in swamp land and later how to be moved um
(05:13):
to its current location, which is this beautiful Walden city
UM that's dilapidated. And when you talk about dilapidated cities,
the nice word for it is it's developed a patina
and it really has UH. But the patinas on the
all these amazing old Spanish architecture and falling down buildings
(05:33):
interspersed with UH horrible lea like just brutalist Russian architecture
because of the really Russian dominance UH since the revolution.
It is a society that can get by with nothing.
And that's why you should go there in a lot
(05:55):
of ways, because it's despite hardship and despite every hurdle
put in front of them every day, these are people
who are innately happy and it's a really beautiful place
to go. When we talk about food, and obviously I'm
(06:15):
a chef, so a lot of this will always focus
on food. Um. You talk about a cuisine of necessity
again when you go to Miami and eat Cuban food
of Oursailles, Uh, it is a cuisine of opulence and
tons of food and and maybe that's a expat reaction
to the limited access to food and product that they
(06:38):
have now in Cuba. Post revolution, much of the Ukrainian
culture and the agriculture of Cuba was dug up to
replace with sugarcane um for a production of sugar that
would be sold to Russia. UM. And they didn't really
foresee the breaking down of the Soviet Union in I
don't know. I guess a number of people did, UM,
(07:00):
but I don't take the Russians hidden or did the Cubans.
And that really threw Cuba into a a spell of
trying to figure out what they were going to do
with their economy UM, and the economy was was really
pivoted towards tourism. But at that point in time, you
can't really subside on sugarcane UH unless you learn how
(07:20):
to eat protein out of rum um, which you can't. So.
Within the confines of food, the old school of food
is very Caribbean. It's not spicy food. Uh. It's very
based on plantains and rice and beans and pork uh.
Simple breads uh and UK and things like this and
(07:43):
those products still exist. But because of the non abundance
of things in Cuba, you run into issues with eating
on a fairly regular basis, and the food quality is
is up and down. It's you have to kind of
lower it down from a Michelin Star. Its perspective to
(08:03):
I need to eat something that's going to fill my
belly um and and that you you definitely can do that.
There were many restaurants that we found that were really great. UH.
There was a place called Salchi Pizza. Salchi Pizza is
a tiny, little almost kiosk of a restaurant that is
(08:24):
by its name UH, is around bread and pizza. It's
it's kind of a bakery that does good food. It's
right near the University of Havana. The man is Alberto Gonzalez,
and Alberto was a chef in Italy for a long time.
He had a Michelin Star in Italy. He's Cuban uh,
and he moved back to Cuba, and so he opens
(08:47):
this little place and like anything else, it is a
cobble together, simple place. It's tiny. The food is great.
But when I went in, he was talking to a
woman who turned out to be a classical piano and
one of the most revere pianists in Cuba. Uh. She's
an expatch, she's a brit Um and she had lived
there for years and years, and they were just conversing,
(09:09):
having fun and laughing and big belly laughs. And there
seemed to be not much activity in the way of food.
And that's because I asked Alberto what was going on
and whether we could eat, and he said, no flower today.
Flowers kind of intrinsically important to making a pizza and
baked goods. But he suddenly went behind and started guessing
up food for us, because, um, regardless of what they have,
(09:32):
hospitality is really at the core of everything. People like
Alberto and every Cuban I I've met, is all about
as they are, about providing something. So he provided the
big spread of spelt breads and different types of things
with no flower in them. Um, and it was great,
It was it was interesting, and again it it identified
this idea that working with nothing, they will still provide
(09:55):
something because that is what they do at the end
of it, he wanted to refuse payment. I paid him anyway.
But again, these are people with next to nothing who
will give you the shirt off their back and feed
you with nothing, and it is such a beautiful culture
in that way. Well, we think about Cuba, we think
(10:24):
about a number of things. We think about Ernest Hemingway.
We think of the Dell, we think of che Guevara,
we think of Rum, we think of Dhakris, we think
of Cuban music because of the Buenavista Social Club. But
all those are tips of very interesting iceberg. So you
(10:46):
can learn a lot about a place, I think by
going and getting a drink. One of the most favorite bars,
or the famous bars, is Uh Floridita, which is Hemingway's
favorite bar in the Havanah. To me, it's good. It's
become a bit of a tourist trap in some ways,
and there's usually a small band. As you walk in,
(11:08):
it's very brightly lit. They make you a dakri or
a kuba libre and you kind of get in and
get out. There are better places to go in Havana,
and there was one called El Cafe, which was amazing.
(11:30):
This one that we went to a lot uh El
Cafe was as just on the corner of a park,
and the park is really interesting because it's the parks
within Havana are kind of the centers for WiFi and
you buy a little WiFi card for like a couple
(11:50):
of pasos um and they're usually sold by people in
the park who bought them of the government office and
then resell them reverse light profit. Within the park, you'll
have no trouble getting you log on through the system
and get onto pretty much the slowest snail WiFi system
on the planet. But all these people are on their
phones kind of getting updated on their worlds from these parks,
(12:12):
because otherwise WiFi and internet connectivity within the island is
really restricted and next to none. Your cell phone generally
won't work unless your own WiFi there, so plan accordingly.
But sometimes it's nice to travel to a place and unplug,
and in Cuba you're forced to unplug um and I
(12:33):
think that's really important aspect of Havana. Now it's few
and far between that sometimes you find a place that
you just feel so at home when you're traveling. I mean,
I think it's key to good traveling that you always
find a place where you feel at home. Maybe it's
entirely different than what you're used to, but that you
feel like you belong there. And whether it's a restaurant,
(12:54):
a cafe, a coffee shop, a library, whatever it is,
you need to open yourself up to finding that place.
And I found one in Havana that is that to me,
which is called El Dandy U E L. And then
next where d A N d Y. It's right next
to Crystal Square. That's this kind of two room place
with a door guy outside. It's not a fancy bar,
(13:16):
but it's kind of the tons of a fema everywhere.
UM just interesting, kind of shabby chic type of bar place.
And but they have really good food as well. It's
really active and and youthful and interesting and and just
is a ton of fun. So El Dandy, which is
(13:36):
right in old Havana and it is um and right
next to El Dandy UM or just across the street,
it's Villa Gas is the street is a store that
designs fashion and art and it has amazing prints and
things like that, and it's called Clendestina. Clendestina also has
(13:59):
a app that they produced and it's just a curated
map of what to do, where to eat, uh, nightlife, parks, museums,
what to do on the weekends, which beaches to go to,
and it's in this amazing hand drawn map that they sell.
So that's called Clandestina. Clandestina also has just amazing art
(14:19):
prints that you can buy. They're really inexpensive and they're
beautifully silk screen prints. We went to another place, uh
that I'm blanking the name of where it was just
a printing house and you wander in and a knock
on the door and the guy let you in, and
they were just it is a print silk screen print
shop that was huge and really old, and this man
was showing us around and he spoke no English, and
(14:41):
I was telling him to watch out behind him, that
it was hot and his case would be ready soon
because again I only know his kitchen Spanish. But they
just had beautiful, stunning prints, just stacks and stacks of
different runs of different prints and you can buy those.
So you just have to go out and find things
and and realize that it there are things there of interest.
(15:04):
Staying there is very inexpensive. There are lots of airbnbs.
Now there's vr b o is active there with Airbnb
as well. There's small hotels. They're the large government hotels
that are beautiful and interesting. Uh. They tend to be
more expensive though, and a little more um not maybe
(15:25):
as fancy in the interior as the exteriors exhibit. I
played a stated place called Via Junita just recently, as
I told the man on the street, and it was
a beautiful, absolutely amazing place that supplied breakfast every morning.
They would get you whatever they want. It was inexpensive,
the sweetest people running it. Um. It was totally secure.
And let's talk about safety. When we travel, we always
(15:47):
are interested about safety. Um. I don't think anything would
ever happen to you outside of getting sold cigars in Cuba. Uh.
There the the respect for tourism is innate in the culture,
and the penalties and punishment for messing with tourists or
violence are beyond the pale of what the average cubansism
(16:08):
would want to go to as a result, So it
is a place to go. And in this instance I
had gone down with my friend to go and see.
There is an amazing jazz culture there and they have
a jazz festival Havana each year. Uh. And this so
we went down for Jazz Fest ostensibly and to eat
(16:28):
food and have drinks and wander around a city that
is so historically important to the Caribbean and to me
as a person as well. The personal connection I have
to Cuba as an odd one. My family were my
father's said were bankers in the Caribbean, and my father
(16:48):
was actually born as a Canadian. He was born in
Cuba and raised there, uh though despite he went to
boarding school in Canada, he was pretty much raised in
Havana up until the revolution, where they left shortly before.
And my dad is an economist and for years went
back and taught capitalist economics of the University of Havana
on invitation of the government. So this is a strange
(17:10):
place to go back to for me. So even with
that personal connection, the question often comes up as do
why you should go to a certain place? Um, I
live in a world where I actually want to go
to every place because I believe in this world, and
I believe in seeing the different cultures and how they
(17:30):
work and how they interact, and believe in trying to
diagnose the smiles on people's faces or the the way
they cobble themselves through the day, and Havana is a
particularly interesting example of a people with such amazing amount
of spine and wherewithal that they've been able to craft
out of deer, nothing in existence that makes them happy.
(17:53):
And I think philosophically as an outsider, coming into that
is really really interesting, and it's easy to see that
it's not so easy to get there. So let's talk
about that after the break. I'm Hugh Atchison, this is
(18:21):
the passenger, and we're trying to get to Cuba. So
all you have to do to get to Cuba years ago,
up until the Obama administration changed travel restrictions and the
ability for airline carriers to carry humans from the US
to Havana. Before that happened, you'd have to fly from
(18:44):
Europe or another Central American or South American country or
Caribbean country or Canada. Canada is a huge, huge tourist market,
uh for Cuba, and because and a huge tourist Cuba
as a huge tourist market as well for Europeans, and
you see this a lot when you're there. Still, but
(19:06):
US Americans can travel to Cuba a little more readily
than before up until very recently, so you really want
to stay abreast on the current laws of what's happening.
But generally up until Trump, you're jiggered it a little bit,
changed around a little bit and put a clamping down
(19:27):
up until that point. And these are the two times
I've been all you have to do with state that
you were doing research and you were fine, And I
am doing research because I'm doing food research. My dad's
an economist, he'd be doing economic research, so everything or
journalists can go, etcetera, etcetera. You you and that just
needs to claim on your return when you're turning to
(19:48):
the States as to what your reasoning was for being there.
On entry, you need a visa, and that visa is
granted at the airport from your departure point. I flew
most recently from Lanta Tofana. It's under two hours and
was very inexpensive. Upon landing at the airport, you go
through customs in Cuba, which is absolutely hilarious because of
(20:11):
the uniforms of the Cuban customs people. First of all,
it's generally they're all women, uh and they wear these
like fishnet stockings and very short skirts and it looks
like a Bond movie, uh, in like in nine seventies
Bond film um of the like The Beautiful Congunist Women
(20:33):
or something. It's it's very strange. So you get through,
it's a very hustle and bustle airport. Uh it's not
a very big airport, but it's very hustle and bustle.
People are going to be trying to approach you and
take you anywhere you want in this car or that
car and go talk to that guy, or I can
get you this and that comes at you full throttle.
If you do not speak Spanish at all, you will
(20:53):
have a little bit of trouble keeping up. But it's
amazing what you can do with just a little bit
of Spanish. My Spanish is really based on kitchen Spanish.
So I can say hot duck and behind you very
quickly and effectively, and then I can say guacamole, which
is I don't even know if that's actually a Spanish sort.
But as soon as you get there, it's about a
half an hour drive from the airport. Do not rent
(21:16):
a car in Cuba. I don't think Americans can even
really rent a car in Cuba. Transport is very easy.
From the airport, you can get a classic which are
the old gelopes that we've talked about, or you can
get more modernized somewhat modernized taxi that I'll take you
there um and and take you to wherever you are staying.
Uh and again it's about a half an hour ARRIVEE.
(21:38):
Getting there is really easy. It's it's wonderful and it's
and it's fun, and you have no excuse not to go.
It's two hour flight. You get a visa at the
airport that you pay for. Really, that's it. Other than that.
At the times that I've been in the past few years,
I could just say that I was doing research, which
I always am in the food studies and food culture
(21:59):
and under any cuisines of different places. Um, you can
go on a trip for religious purposes and academics and
things like that. And the Trumpet administration has just sent
down on that a little bit, and we're still trying
to figure out what that means. But right now we're
still into the assumption that you can pretty well get
to Cuba. It is a flight. During the Obama administration,
(22:21):
they did uh allow flights to go directly from the
States to Havana, and so I was on a delta
flight recently the last time, I went very easy under
two hours in your door door. Uh. That two hours
brings you, though Cuba geographically is just off the coast
of Florida, it brings you to a place that is
(22:42):
completely different from where you left from. It's completely different.
You land at the airport and it is hustle and
bustle and people trying to um get you to ride
on their cars. And they're all these old gelopis. American
cars have been cobbled together or they're LATAs because of
the Russian dominance. And you drive past a serve, a
(23:05):
gray infrastructure of Cuba which is mostly sugarcane. Now in
a half an hour drive into the city of Havana,
there are numbers ways of being transported. Your feet are
probably the best means of transport. Havana is not very hilly,
UH so you can definitely get around on that if
you're willing and able. The other way is a sort
(23:27):
of shared taxi like a lot of UH and a
lot is the Rushing Car Company UM pretty much known
as the UH, the longest living crappy car of Russia. Ever,
UM how they're still getting parts for a lot of
I have no idea but how they get parts for
anything in Cuba is really open to the discussion, and
(23:48):
I have no idea how they do this. The other
so there's those taxis which are kind of shared taxis,
so meaningly, it's a small car and you might be
jumping in with another family of three in the back
seat and you're kind of share earning the cost of
it and then getting dropped off in some you know
shared point. Um. There are busses around town. I did
not use the buses, And then you can use private
(24:09):
taxis which the hotel can call for you more gonna
be like the toilets of the world. And then there
are the the old classics, and the classics are these, Um,
if you're prone to getting sort of carsick in the
backseat because of uh gas emissions and exhaust, you probably
(24:30):
shouldn't ride them, because they're the creakiest old you know
forwards from the fifties that have been cobbled back together
over the years and run. They are so much fun
to be in, and but it's they There is much
fluidity in pricing of these things, so you have to
be prepared to bargain. Cuban bargain on everything. It's nick.
(24:54):
You know it's expected. If they say it's gonna be
twenty kok and you say will how about five, suddenly
you're in it for ten and you're going somewhere. So
it's just it's just how it works. Then there are
the little cocos. Cocos are crazy cocos look like yellow
football helmets with a small motorcycle attached on the front,
(25:16):
operated by some guys screeching through the roads. They're three wheelers.
They're terrifying but exhilarating. So if you like roller coasters
and fun, they're they're they're great. Um, and they are
really inexpensive as well, so getting around is not very expensive.
(25:42):
So what to do in Cuba. Otherwise, there are plenty
of wonderful museums. There's a contemporary art gallery. Um. All
these things are government run. A lot of the bigger
restaurants or government run, they're not very good. Um. But
back to the museums. There's a wonderful museum of sort
of q in military history that's really interesting. Um. It's
(26:03):
definitely propaganda laden, but so is our side of that equation.
So it's a good balance to go in there and
see what what The Bay of Pigs was all about
and um the rise of Fidel and uh and and
what Czech clavera ment to the whole equation of that.
It's a palpably interesting story of revolution um that that
(26:25):
is uh interesting to follow. And that's the Museo de
Lara bolon Um, the Casa de la Cottura, the plaza
that's where we went. It's the cultural sort of house
uh and that was the sort of home base of
the jazz Fest. Jazz Fest was a phenomenally interesting festival.
It spans the different styles of music um in in
(26:48):
the sphere of jazz, and if you're into jazz, it
is really renowned as one of the best fast jazz
vessels you can get to. And it's at a number
of different venues. So we wandered around and and had
passes to all of them, and that was great. In advance,
it was very difficult to book tickets for the Jazz
Festival online uh Cuba does not work that well online.
(27:09):
The neighborhood of Old havana Um, which is really what's
really depicted and when we talk about the old cars
and the gelopes and Old Havannah is really where all
the um the places are that you really want to
hang out at um and in what you see in
in one of this a social club, you know the
album cover with the old car. Most of the museums
(27:32):
are going to be an old Havanna. Uh So most
of the nightlife is really gonna be in Centro. Some
of the nightlife and good cafes will be in old Havanna.
But I rarely found like the youth culture and uh
the the culture that I wanted to see was more
in Centro. Um in the arts and museums again, I
(27:53):
talked about the Museo de Laro Volocion, which is amazing.
That is the armory of the April ninth museum. Dates
in Cuba are are really important and they'll come up
and you just want to immerse yourself in the history
of of a place before you go to a little
bit and it will make a lot more sense. The
Plaza de la Revolution is really uh interesting. And then
(28:18):
just walking along the Malaccone Malicone, which is this the
walled area on looking over to the ocean and then
the island. Uh. The the old fortress on the other
side of the of the canal is really beautiful and
interesting during and the Malicone tends to be the place
where Cubans really assembled during the evenings on listening on
(28:39):
the weekends, and it's kind of thing. They party there
and it's their kind of open air space and it's
it's beautiful in in that way. Um, as you go
towards Centro, Centro was the place and I've touched on
it already. Um which is called Fabrica. Fabrica has a
restaurant it's very lauded next door called Guarida, and it's okay. Um,
(29:07):
I wouldn't say it was. It was great. Sometimes it's
really interesting as to why things get the amount of
press they do and whether they really are good and
worthy of it. So instead of going to La Guerida,
I would go actually go to Fabrica and eat at
the food stalls within Fabrica. And again, Fabrica is this
crazy like art gallery show space. Fabrica has four music venues,
(29:32):
it's got ten bars, it's got tons of art galleries
and it's all in this one sort of it would
it's kind of like the Williamsburg of Havanna. Um, and
it's kind of hipster cool in a lot of ways.
So two dollars is the admittance fee, and they give
you a card and the card is notated every time
(29:53):
you get food or a drink, and then you pay
when you leave. UM. And so transaction, all the transactions
that are in one place so they can keep up
with it accounting wise. Um. And there's tons of security there. Uh.
I wouldn't get out of hand there, they'll probably I
don't know what they do, but yeah, um, but really interesting,
(30:16):
wonderful place. Another thing you really should do in Cuba
is get a taxi or get a classic and go
to the beaches. And the beaches are amazing in Cuba.
When you look at the island of Cuba, it's pretty
much all beaches. It's an island. They're beautiful beaches everywhere.
(30:37):
And the beaches that people tend to go to easily
outside Havannah are twenty minutes away, half an hour, forty
five minutes away, and they're just a sequential grouping of
beaches on the northern coast, just east of Havana. We
went to one called Playta Santa Maria. That was great.
Their little cafes there near the beach you can usually
(30:59):
get to, uh, like they'll sell you beer and stuff
on the beach. All you need to do is grab
a hotel towel or um you know, Airbnb towel from
the room, pack some water and uh you know that's
that's all you need and a little bit of money
and you'll be there and it. The beaches are unless
its specific holiday, they're not very crowded. They're utterly beautiful beaches.
(31:21):
The waters amazing, um and there it's safe to get
out there. Don't if you're driving your own car, which
again I don't think they're Americans can really rent carris
in Cuba. Don't speed Uh. Cuban police and military have
a lot of time on their hands to pull over speeders.
They just seem to do it all the time by
driving out there and watching people getting pulled over. Um so.
(31:43):
But but there's no excuse not to just rainbow up
the coast a little bit and experience these beaches that
are just amazing. Let's talk about the basics of the
economy and how it works. There are two different types
(32:04):
of currency in Cuba, and the differences the Kuk and
the coupe. So this is the financial system and kok
is the convertible currency, somewhat indexed the U. S. Dollar.
But the government taxes the exchange of it when you
exchange US dollars relatively highly so one kuk see you
see equals eighty seven cents American approximately. At the time
(32:25):
that I went, a coup is the Cuban paso utilized
by Cubans. It's not necessary to have it. Um. One
kuk approximately equals coupe. UM. Hotels are generally large. The
one I stayed up with tiny, it was four rooms,
but beautiful rooms. UM. There are other boutique hotels that exist,
(32:47):
and they're more popping up all the time. UM. And
it's interesting, like how how things are broken down after
years of communism and and there's still communist um. But
it's just interesting. Now Cubans can own property. Uh, they
can have small businesses, they can own their own restaurants
(33:08):
that are not that are like palladars, which is kind
of the privately owned restaurants. Uh. Pallader culture is started
by like literally hidden restaurants in somebody's basement or living
room or whatever that would be conducting kind of black
market restaurants. Now it's kind of accepted that those things exist. Um.
With tourism. UM. I talked to one guy who was
working in a cafe on a visitor a couple of
(33:30):
years ago, and I talked to him for a long time.
He was a waiter there and he had he told
me that he was a doctor as well, but he
was working as a waiter because he would make a
lot more money. And this is the problem that we
have inherently when you visit a place that's having brain drain,
is that you're exporting your talent because they just the
economy can't support the people that they're training there. But
(33:50):
that and brain drain is is real in Cuba. And
that's why people, you know, try and try and get
across to to Miami, is to to make some money,
to get by um. And this is you know, again,
I'm not a historian, I'm not an academic. I'm a chef.
This is just my perspective. This is Hugh on the line.
(34:15):
I have an amazing Cuban musician who's not just a
Cuban musician. He's from Havannah. Well he's not from Havanna,
but he's from Pinar del Rio, um. But he lives
in Havana now, but he travels the world doing music
under the name of Sima Funk. And it's Eric and
Glecias Rodriguez Eric. Good to have you. Yeah, how are you?
(34:36):
I'm grateful. Yeah, you're in You're in France recording an EP.
That's very cool. How do the how do the French
do the French understand off for Cuban music? Yeah, but
he's a lot of Cuban everywhere, so everywhere that you
go you found it. That's amazing. You were a medical
student before, so you've always been a musician. But you're
a medical student. What makes you decide to fully go
(34:59):
into music full time. One of the reasons that my
family they were put for the whole system, so they are,
you know, the prestigious of being good in that. So
at the beginning when I started to study, I just
start for you know, more for the family stuff. But
I realized at some point that I will not be
a good doctor. So at the same time I get
(35:21):
more involved in the music. I meet right Fernande in Lavana.
I see the first big crazy life show that IVER
seen and when I when I see that, I just
decided to quit the medicine and just moved to the
capital and start to do my own thing, because I
was like crazy trying to get this sensation. Well, you've
been pretty successful in it. You're really the hardest musician
(35:43):
in Cuba right now and around the world representing Afro
Cuban music. And the music is great. It's so contemporary,
so full of life and and and just and just
funky interesting stuff. Not but you played uh, so many
(36:11):
shows in the last uh and you're going to play
so many shows from this year. But New Orleans jazz Fest,
Playboy jazz Fest, Lola Poulos, Argentina, Lollapool, Chile. Does that?
Does that like? Does that make you happy? Or is
it like, Uh, there's that amazing place in Cuba. There's
(36:32):
fassica Um which I went too many times in Havannah,
Fabrica dels Artes, the the arts compound, and you played
a huge show there that was like the most popular
show there ever. Um was that during jazz Fest or
just a show on its own? It's just just a show?
Was it was the show that I made? But yeah,
(36:52):
it's it's amazing. All this time and all this last year,
I've been crazy. I've been super fast and visible, super positive,
all the answer of the crowd everything is it's like
getting more and more exciting, getting more and more cool
and the music is still born. So it's a happy time,
super happy and playing lallapeloosa and in all these places.
(37:15):
It's amazing. All this is amazing. It's like you don't
you don't seem specifically in this when you start. So
I start like one year and a half, almost two years,
So I never saw that in so quick time I
will be able to play in all these places and
will be start to through creating more and more people around.
It's amazing. It's amazing. And they gets it's just your
(37:36):
talent and and but that that's that's so fast to
be so successful. So back in Havana, Um, what's the
place that you love for food? Like what's the place
that you just you go to when you're at home
and in Havannah? Like where where? Where? Where should people
go these days? Like for really cool food for me?
For me, I'm a big, big, big, crazy final place
(38:00):
calling tot a Peppino. It's like an Italian it's Italian place,
but but they are like a super cool people, super familiar.
So you go there and you have like a real
pasta making any normal prices you know, in not in
a superspensive prices like the normal price for a restaurant
in Havana. So it's amazing and the food is its crazy.
Everything that they cook is like a really fresh and
(38:23):
tasty and the place is amazing, and the people also
so returned that I got there is like having a
good time. I go my mom, I go friend, I
have meeting there. So it's it's my favorite place for food.
Have you been to the Suchi Pizza. No, it's this
amazing chef, really interesting guy who cooked. He's Cuban, but
he cooked in Italy for a long time. He had
(38:44):
a Mitchell and Star and it's just a regular beautiful place,
simple but really good baked goods and pizza and faculta.
But with the day I went there, there was nobody
there because there was no flour in Havana, and so
those type of things in Havana. I mean, is it changing?
Do you do you see an arc towards having being?
(39:06):
I mean, is it changing in a more rapid pace
than it ever has? Brom I'm not sure of of
of how No one real answer, So I don't know
specifically the reality of the of the changing and all
this stuff. But what I feel in the music environment
and in the artists environment is that it's a real
(39:26):
big beginning from many artists. You know, like many people
are like doing more art, are trying to get more
in the in the network. They're trying to produce more.
They're trying to understand better how is work, how they
can like go to more crowd on, how they can
like mad more representative the Cuban kilter in their own art.
(39:47):
The last three years have been like crazy with the art.
Everybody is like pushing and making more music, making more painters, photographer, everybody,
the actors on all the films. Everything is like getting crazy.
The people. It's like doing lot of things, a lot
of things. How important as a place kind of like
an art complex like Fabrica and and to art culture
(40:08):
and Havana super important, super important, like one oasis of
all of us. Even the musicians. We go there, you know,
we go there and you can have like a meeting
place for meet people talk about work or even talk
about whatever life, or you can go for for see
a concert show. Always most part of the thing the
(40:28):
time you're gonna see a show new people that they
are getting involved in them in the media environment, and
you can go and you can go to for it.
You know, you can go to for see plastic arts,
even you can go to two internships or some stuff.
You know. YouTube have been there, Spotify too. Every time
that's something like cool and informative happened, Fabrica always open
(40:53):
the doors for the people can come and work and
enjoy and learn. Now it's it's an amazing place, and
it's such an incubator. It's just such a place that's
so thriving and exciting. But it's so there's so many
different things going on at once. I was there for
jazz Fest last year, and um, you know you do
you wander through and there are four different concerts going on,
and there's so many different places to get food and
(41:15):
a great drink, and it's just and but the youth
there and the young people there was just so I mean,
they just take their art so seriously and and really
hone in on it and and and some of that, uh,
I think a reaction to what they have and and
the fact that there isn't a lot of you know,
uh abundance of you know things, and you know, so
(41:39):
they treasure their their art in that way and and
it just made me so proud to be in in Havana. Yeah,
because and in some point and now that we have
more assets to the information that people start to know.
I didn't knew before, but I start to know now
all the influence of the Cuba arts in the in
the art of the of America, and they are even
from Europe and all this stuff. We have been like
(42:01):
a they Cuba music, the Cuba are the plastic are
the writers in Cuba. I've been like a really been
like a really strong in the culture everywhere. So now
that we have more information that people start to know
down they start to take more focus in the in
the national art, you know, in the the art from Cuba.
So always like young kids, they start to try to
(42:23):
to say something in many different ways, but always trying
to put from the Cuban behavior, the Cuban song, Cuban
people most I mean invent I just found that people
were so proud, I mean, of of their arts and
of their culture. And it was so interesting to see. Yeah,
like if you're if you're out on a Friday night,
(42:44):
you want to go for a good drink, a good cocktail,
where do you go, Yeah, for a good cultail and
where you can go A couple of places. But if
you go to Aco, you can have like a good
stuff there. You know what it is? Essentio isn't the way?
Oh yes, it's a cool place. It's a really good place. Up.
(43:04):
You go up and you can have a good dream.
But also you can go to it's a new place
now calling trees or nine. That is pretty good also
for haveing like good drinks and and yeah, Ferika always
have like good good stuff or drink because they have
different restaurant and different bars, so you can choose whatever
you want. And what what's your favorite beach to go to?
(43:30):
People there? That's amazing. Well that's very cool. Well, good
luck with recording in Paris, and we look forward to
the EP and uh tell everybody one line on why
they should go to Havana. Why they why should they
go to Cuba? Well, you should go to Cuba because
there's people there and it's cool people there and you're
gonna enjoy it definitely. That's right. They're very cool people
(43:54):
there and it's only for me. It's an hour and
forty five minute flight from Atlanta, so it's really easy.
So that's not as far aways. It's super easy. Okay, Sma,
fun go listen to the music. Thank you, bro, take
care of man. I'm Hugh Atchison. You're listening to The
Passenger from my Heart Radio. We'll be back after this
(44:14):
quick break. I'm Hugh Atchison. This is the Passenger. One
good way to prepare for a trip beyond packing your
suitcase is through media and for some recommendations, I'm gonna
(44:36):
hand it over to Jordan run Tug is a former
music editor of People Magazine at VH one dot com
and regular contributor at Rolling Stone and Entertainment Weekly. Run
Tug is also co host of the podcast Rivals, which
is out now from My Heart Radio. If you're interested
in music industry beef, definitely check that out. We have Cubita,
(44:59):
thanks for so many genres of music, the mambo, blero,
rumba just to name a few. They're all amazing on
their own and many are crucial ingredients to rock and roll.
Prior to the trade and bargo set in place by
President Kennedy in nineteen sixty one, Cuban sounds and rhythms
were frequently heard on American radio and were a major
influence on America's own music. For example, the classic Beau
(45:20):
Diddley beat bump bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump,
bump bump. That's essentially a three two clave rhythm, a
common bell pattern found in Afro Cuban music. Now one
of the most famous Cuban musicians in the United States
and anywhere for that matter, was Celia Cruz. She got
her start early. According to legend, her very first pair
(45:40):
of shoes were a gift from a tourist thanking her
for the song she sang. She got her big break
in the early nineteen fifties when she was tapped to
be the lead singer for the popular Cuban big band
Lessonora Marten Serra, sort of like Cuba's answer to the
Duke Ellington Orchestra. She became a fixture on Cuban television
and radio, and even headlined at Havanna's legendary Tropic in
a nightclub. But Fidel Castro Is Uprising in nineteen fifty
(46:03):
nine essentially put an abrupt end to all that. The
Communist government took a dim view of the band and
crews eventually fled the country. She settled in the New
York area, where she played an instrumental role in the
development of a new genre, salsa, literally a sauce. It
blended elements of Afro Cuban music with sounds of the Caribbean,
Puerto Rico, Harlem jazz, plus elements of R and B,
(46:26):
rock and funk to taste, sharing herself the nickname the
Queen of Salsa, thanks to her complete dominance of the
genre over the course of her extensive half century career.
She has some thirty seven studio albums, but a good
place to start is probably Celia and Johnny, her nineteen
seventy four collaborative album with Dominican floutist and percussionist Johnny Pacheco.
But if you're going to Havanna, you should probably throw
(46:47):
up back old school to something from pre revolutionary days
of the Tropicana from her nineteen fifty eight album Cuba's
Foremost Rhythm Singer, I recommend Bella's Cuba. The oppressive communist
(47:13):
regime drove many artists, including Celia Cruz, out of Cuba
in the early nineteen sixties, but a great many stayed
and their lives were not made easy. Castro's government despised
rock and roll. They even had a term for it,
ideological diversionism. He effectively banned the genre and even gave
a lengthy speech about the dangers of blue jeans and
Elvis Presley. But despite Castros ever present fears of being
(47:36):
invaded by the United States, the sounds of the British
invasion could not be stopped. Many Cuban groups with names
like Los Astros, Las Dadas, Las Bocaneros formed in spite
of government harassment. These groups modeled themselves after The Beatles
and the Rolling Stones and played their own version of
amped up Mersey beat, which they called street rock. The
official ban was lifted in nineteen sixty six, but the
(47:56):
government closely monitored these groups in case they were counter
revolution scenaries. Still, a band called Las pacific Goes dared
to hold a public rock concert in ninety seven. It
had to be done with minimal prep to avoid suspicion.
They borrowed instruments and performed with no practice. The two
hours set was recorded and the smuggled out of the country,
making it some of the rarest recorded music of the era.
(48:18):
Tracks from me are available on YouTube, including a cover
of The Kinks All Day and All of the Night.
Give it a spin and remember those who risked all
the rock I intend to be with the daytime. Yes,
(48:39):
I don't want to be with. Cuba has an amazing
history of athleticism, and recently there was a big push
to allow Cuban baseball players finally to be able to
play in Major League Baseball in the States and in Canada.
(48:59):
Uh um. But that that kind of got sinched again
by the Trump administration unfortunately. But before really the amazing
baseball players would defect and uh, as you know, a
lot of people were defecting from dance troops and things
like that, are visiting boxers and uh but I really
(49:20):
want to talk about boxing actually for a little bit,
because Cuba has got a really storied Olympic amateur boxing
uh situation going on. One of the most famous fighters
in Cuba of all time was Telefilo Stevenson. He was amazing,
amazing Olympic boxer. He won three gold medals um and
(49:41):
he he passed away when he was sixty. But he
at one point in his career he was supposed to
fight Muhammad Ali in the States and it was being
promoted and this idea and he was going to get
paid just bankload of money and eventually he just came
to the decision that he didn't want the money and
(50:04):
that he had everything you wanted, which goes a long
way to explaining Cuba to people and Cuban happiness, which
is really innate and really interesting. And he said that
I will not leave my country for one million dollars
or for much more than that. He'd rather be read
than rich. He said, what is a million dollars against
(50:26):
eight million Cubans who loved me? And it's just kind
of it blows your mind that somebody can make that
choice in this day and age, and it's a beautiful
choice to make. And Cuba has long been in the
line for being the autocratic state that it is and
being communists, being heavy handed and imprisoning dissidents and and
(50:50):
they do all those things and and it's been it's
a horrible regime in a lot of ways. But somehow,
out of that there is a core to the even
people that is still so warm and intelligent and savvy
and understanding and empathetic and warm. I don't know, it's
a culture that you can really look at and and
(51:14):
that anything is possible with them. But Telephila Stevenson is
an amazing amazing story going to a place like Havanna. Uh,
you have to be curious. You have to wonder about
other cultures and want to see them and want to
(51:35):
see them interact with each other, and want to see
the strategies on how they plot their day and cobbled
together through life with very little. I think you want
to have a historical mindset that makes you inquisitive as
to what's going on and why they are where they are. Now.
(51:57):
We go to places like Havana and why we go
anywhere because we're curious as humans, and I don't think
there's any you know, I think it's really important to
understand and know the names of your neighbors on your
street where you live. An equivalent, a bigger equivalency to that,
is that it's important to understand your neighbors who are
(52:20):
next to you, who are sixty miles off the coast
of Florida, because they're there and it's a culture that
we know very little about, because we've sanctioned them to
a point where they are completely different culture than us,
and it's restrictive to get there, and we've closed the door.
And I think we need to open the door to
(52:41):
places like Cuba and understand them. You've been listening to
The Passenger. This is a production of I Heart Radio
created by Hugh Atchison and Christopher Hasiotas were produced and
edited by Mike John's. A researcher is Jesselyn Shields and
(53:05):
Christopher hassiotis as our executive producer. Special thanks to Gabrielle Collins,
Crystal Waters, and the rest of the crew. If you
like The Passenger, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.
It helps other people like you find the show. If
you're a local and you want to let me know
what I missed and where should go on my next visit,
Or if you've recently been a Passenger like me and
(53:27):
want to share your experience, hit me up on Instagram
and Twitter at Hugh Atchison. Well more podcasts from my
heart Radio use the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Thanks for listening.
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