A Black uprising is shaking Cuba’s Communist regime. Millions around the world know “Patria y Vida” — “Fatherland and Life” — the scintillating music video that inverted the Cuban Communist Party’s slogan — “Fatherland or Death” — and became the anthem of protests in Cuba on July 11.
Less familiar is “Oe’ Policia Pinga” — roughly, “F— the Police” — by the rappers Marichal and Daryelo Sánchez.
Whereas “Patria y Vida” denounces 60 years of official “lies” and praises dissident artists of Cuba’s San Isidro Movement, “Oe’ Policia Pinga” channels popular fury at the regime’s day-in-day-out enforcers: “You’re the most hated guy in your neighborhood . . . You’ll see what happens to you when the people come for you/ No saint on heaven or earth can protect you.” Two Cuba-based rappers who appear in “Patria y Vida” have just released a remix of “Oe’ Policia Pinga” on YouTube, accompanied by images of protesters pelting police with rocks and overturning their cars on July 11.
Almost all these artists, like many of their compatriots who took to Cuba’s streets, are of African descent.