By Francisco Acevedo
HAVANA TIMES – Cuban singer-songwriter Amaury Perez’s disappointment, because his music isn’t being promoted, was the topic of debate on social media this week.
Perez is one of the icons of the Nueva Trova Movement, who wrote super “revolutionary” songs such as Acuerdate de abril (1976) or Marti en Amaury (1978), to give just a couple of examples.
His complaint could be shared with other singer-songwriters who have been devoured by reggaeton and other everyday evils (fans, forgive me), but I personally don’t know of any of his new releases. He never really was what we call “popular”, but I did like lots of his songs.
We forget that he benefitted from all of the promotional apparatus that followed the Nueva Trova, even if he was the so-called Ugly Duckling of the group, and this also came at the expense of other artists who were censored, both in Cuba and abroad.
He added that many people leaving “his team” for good (production, staging and accompanying musicians) has made him even more disappointed. This is the reality everywhere, Amaury, we find friends leaving us every day for this reason, because they don’t want to continue to live here and would prefer to wash dishes anywhere else with the dream of giving their children and grandchildren a better future.
“I was used to a venue and show that I could no longer guarantee them,” he says, and he’s right, but who’s to blame? However, in this very interview: (https://oncubanews.com/gente/amaury-perez-no-espero-ni-sueno-con-exitos-tardios/), he admits that his last concert was in Havana’s Karl Marx Theater in December 1997. In other words, he hasn’t performed alone in over 25 years.
The budget for his TV program “Con 2 que se quieran” was cut after he gave up honoring Fidel Castro and flattering his brother Raul and the heir, Miguel Diaz-Canel, and this hurt him.
The reality is that the program stood out amid the mediocrity of the rest of Cuban TV because of its appearance, elegance, photography and guests. However all of these people – mostly from the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC) weren’t being paid what a normal cameraman from the Cuban Radio and Television Institute (ICRT) gets, where practically all of Cuban TV is produced, for example.
“Wasting time arguing about artistic projects with the ignorant is wasting your time twice over,” he pointed out without going into too many details, but it’s clear that he didn’t feel like he had any support.
It’s not easy to publish a novel in Cuba when you’re not a well-known writer, but he managed to release two: El infinito rumor del agua (2007) and Diez meses y veintinueve días (2008), which weren’t well-received, but he still had them published.
What a coincidence that all of his criticism has come after him suffering what any regular Cuban suffers day in and day out. He kept complicitly quiet while he was enjoying privileges from the regime.
He’s also complaining from outside Cuba, because he’s been living in Mexico for a good while, and where he isn’t treated like a regular artist, because he has been invited for Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s morning conferences on more than one occasion, as he is a self-confessed fan of the Cuban Revolution.
With almost 70 years on his back (his birthday is in December), the son of Amaury Perez Garcia and Consuelito Vidal, Cuban TV stars, has also pointed out at another time: “I have no idea who’s listening to me.” Well, anyway, this may partially explain his absence from concert halls and even though it’s understandable that he wouldn’t be concerned about these things with his career, they are an important part of this business, because we can’t forget that music is also a business.
Amaury is expected to sing at the TrovAbierta Festival, in Queretaro, on November 17th, which will pay tribute to Pablo Milanes, who passed away in 2022. This is also interesting because he had always stood by his friend Silvio Rodriguez in his feud with Pablo, after he gave the Cuban public his best musical collaborations.
Pablo, who was quite critical of the regime in his last years, even though he decided to return to the island to take his dying breath, was missing from “Con 2 que se quieran”, and this wasn’t a coincidental problem. Over the course of the program’s three seasons that was on the air for 10 years, there was plenty of time to find an opening in the agenda of the Nueva Trova founder to sit him down and have an intimate conversation.
Well, anyway, this is personal business. The important thing here is the opportunism of “converts”, although I don’t believe this is Amaury’s case.
Some people will remember his role in organizing the Peace without borders concert, the famous one with Juanes and co. in 2009, and they won’t forget that Amaury was the only artist taking part that was booed, precisely because of him being in bed with the country’s highest political circles.
Months before, he had accompanied Fidel on a private jet to the US, a “privilege” that no other singer-songwriter of his generation had.
It’s very easy to complain when we get annoyed. It’s truly admirable to denounce what needs to be denounced when you are in your moment of glory, when you have cameras and microphones around you.
I personally believe that it’s never too late to open your eyes, but I repeat that I don’t think this is any more than a little hissy fit, and that it’ll take one phone call to get Amaury licking the boots of the president of the hour again.
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