De Musica Ligera: The return of Silvio Rodriguez

Cuban musician Silvio Rodriguez is scheduled to perform tonight at New York’s Carnegie Hall after a thirty-one year absence from the U.S.

In a press conference on Tuesday Rodriguez expressed his joy at being able to play again in the U.S., a country he “admires in many different directions.” A staunch defender of the Cuban Revolution, Rodriguez said that he still "believes” in its ideals and the social changes created under the Castro regime. Nevertheless he added that Cuba needs to "repairing the decrepitness" and that there are aspects of the island that should be “revitalized.”

Rodriguez plans to perform in a tour of cities like Oakland, Los Angeles, and Washington D.C. His visit to the States is “is the latest addition to a growing list of Cuban performers allowed to enter the U.S. since October 2009.” (One example of this was last February when Los Van Van held a concert in Miami for the first time in eleven years).

While Rodriguez tour could be seen as part of a change in Cuba-U.S. relations, one analyst interviewed for a Bloomberg article sees things somewhat distinctly:

“The fact that we’re willing to grant a visa to Silvio Rodriguez, an icon of the revolution, the bard of the revolution, demonstrates that the Cold War dynamic, the fear, the isolation, the retribution, we’re past that,” (Council of the Americas policy director Christopher) Sabatini said. “Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean this administration is in any hurry to push for a real opening.”

All politics side, here is “El Mayor” as performed by Rodriguez in 1990:

Online Sources- Reuters, Latin America News Dispatch, The Latin Americanist, Bloomberg, YouTube