Negro Soy Yo: Hip Hop and Raced Citizenship in Neoliberal Cuba by Marc D. Perry (review)

The first chapter, "Raced Neo-liberalism: Groundings for Hip Hop," establishes a much-needed groundwork for the hip-hop scene for readers who may be new to the discourse. A history of Cuban life and the historical processes that led to the articulation of an Afro-Cuban identity after the Cuban Revolution provide an accessible means of understanding the symbols and ideologies that raperos will later reclaim. Perry foregrounds the racial fictions, the consumption of blackness within the tourist market, and the subsequent informal economies, which he labels "racial entrepreneurialisms" (p. 45). Cuba's policies maintain a nonracial state; however, as Perry shows, there is a legacy of appropriating blackness and then systematically excluding Afro-Cubans from participation in these markets. He explores the tensions of a nonracial state within a developing neoliberal economy benefiting from racialized commodities.

Each subsequent chapter concentrates on a particular dimension of the lives and careers of the MCs, DJs, and promoters who were at the center of this scene, including a chapter on gender and body poetics, interactions with state institutions, and how artists reinterpreted Afro-Cuban history. In chapter two, "Hip Hop Cubano: An Emergent Site of Black Life," Perry does not retell the history of hip-hop, but instead establishes how exposure to African American music like R&B and early hip-hop was self-affirming. Many of Perry's interlocutors spoke to the importance of Afro-diasporic music in their own self-identification, particularly in how it contrasted with state-sponsored presentations of race in terms of static, folkloric traditions. In chapter four, "Critical Self-Fashionings and Their Gendering," Perry extends this conversation to focus on bodily performativity and gender politics. The chapter demonstrates how his interlocutors manifest principles discussed in earlier chapters through a gendered subjectivity. While he details several case studies in an engaging manner, devoting more time to this subject could have enhanced his overall argument.

A central theme concentrates on the interaction between Cuban MCs and Afro-diasporic symbols of blackness. Rather than a direct appropriation, MCs refashion these markers in order to establish their own Afro-Cuban identity. Through temas, the name given to hip-hop songs to emphasize the importance of the message (p. 79), raperos locate a discussion of race within the broader legacy of Afro-Cuban history. Afro-diasporic icons like Malcolm X, as well as historical black activists and leaders in Cuba before the Revolution, serve as inspiration for raperos who position themselves within the Afrodiasporic community while maintaining roots in the Cuban experience. By drawing on individuals and movements from elsewhere, raperos can fashion a uniquely Afro-Cuban identity. Perry argues that this is not an importation of American blackness, but a voicing of a facet of Cuban life long denied by the state. Articulation and critique of the nonracial positioning was not meant to stand in resistance to the state but instead as a means of breaking the silence and creating change.

The author returns to the intersections of race and the economy in the discussion of income disparity and the creation of racialized spaces within Havana. Perry examines a case study of a hip-hop festival in that city, where American artists related more to other African Americans living in Cuba than to Afro-Cuban audiences and musicians themselves. Cuban musicians articulated a frustration with the sharing of musical spaces and ideas but a limited ability to connect outside of the concerts. These "zones of consumption," particularly in tourist spaces like hotels, led to the exclusion of Cuban artists, who were not welcome to enter (p. 124). This point is significant for recognizing not only American exceptionalism abroad, but also the precarious dual citizenship of Afro-Cuban musicians. Perry draws on the work of Stuart Hall and applies W.E.B. Du Bois...