Fiesta De Diez Pesos Music And Gay Identity In Special Period Cuba

The ‘Special Period’ in Cuba was an extended era of economic depression starting in the early 1990s, characterized by the collapse of revolutionary values and social norms, and a way of life conducted by improvised solutions for survival, including hustling and sex-work. During this time there developed a thriving, though constantly harassed and destabilized, clandestine gay scene (known as the ‘ambiente’). In the course of eight visits between 1995 and 2007, the last dozen years of Fidel Castro’s reign, Moshe Morad became absorbed in Havana’s gay scene, where he created a wide social network, attended numerous secret gatherings-from clandestine parties to religious rituals-and observed patterns of behavior and communication. He discovered the role of music in this scene as a marker of identity, a source of queer codifications and identifications, a medium of interaction, an outlet for emotion and a way to escape from a reality of scarcity, oppression and despair. Morad identified and conducted his research in different types of ‘musical space,’ from illegal clandestine parties held in changing locations, to ballet halls, drag-show bars, private living-rooms and kitchens and santería religious ceremonies. In this important study, the first on the subject, he argues that music plays a central role in providing the physical, emotional, and conceptual spaces which constitute this scene and in the formation of a new hybrid ‘gay identity’ in Special-Period Cuba.

The ‘Special Period’ in Cuba was an extended era of economic depression starting in the early 1990s, characterized by the collapse of revolutionary values and social norms, and a way of life conducted by improvised solutions for survival, including hustling and sex-work. During this time there developed a thriving, though constantly harassed and destabilized, clandestine gay scene (known as the ‘ambiente’). In the course of eight visits between 1995 and 2007, the last dozen years of Fidel Castro’s reign, Moshe Morad became absorbed in Havana’s gay scene, where he created a wide social network, attended numerous secret gatherings-from clandestine parties to religious rituals-and observed patterns of behavior and communication. He discovered the role of music in this scene as a marker of identity, a source of queer codifications and identifications, a medium of interaction, an outlet for emotion and a way to escape from a reality of scarcity, oppression and despair. Morad identified and conducted his research in different types of ‘musical space,’ from illegal clandestine parties held in changing locations, to ballet halls, drag-show bars, private living-rooms and kitchens and santería religious ceremonies. In this important study, the first on the subject, he argues that music plays a central role in providing the physical, emotional, and conceptual spaces which constitute this scene and in the formation of a new hybrid ‘gay identity’ in Special-Period Cuba.

Mazal Tov, Amigos! Jews and Popular Music in the Americas explores the sphere of Jews and Jewishness in the popular music arena in the Americas, by creating a framework for the discussion of new and old trends from an interdisciplinary standpoint.

Popular music has always been a dynamic mediator of gender and sexuality, and a productive site of rebellion, oddity and queerness. The transformative capacity of music-making, performance and consumption helps us to make sense of identity and allows us to glimpse otherworldliness, arousing the political imagination. With an activist voice that is impassioned yet adherent to scholarly rigour, Playing it Queer provides an original and compelling ethnographic account of the relationship between popular music, queer self-fashioning and (sub)cultural world-making. This book begins with a comprehensive survey and critical evaluation of relevant literatures on queer identity and political debates as well as popular music, identity and (sub)cultural style. Contextualised within a detailed history of queer sensibilities and creative practices, including camp, drag, genderfuck, queercore, feminist music and club cultures, the author's rich empirical studies of local performers and translocal scenes intimately capture the meaning and value of popular musics and (sub)cultural style in everyday queer lives.

This reader collects primary documents on the phonograph, cinema, and radio before WWII to show how Americans slowly came to grips with the idea of recorded and mediated sound. Through readings from advertisements, newspaper and magazine articles, popular fiction, correspondence, and sheet music, one gains an understanding of how early-20th-century Americans changed from music makers into consumers.

Featuring an insightful look at lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) life in Cuba, this chronicle illuminates the progress the country has made from centuries of backward attitudes and oppression to the current state of enlightenment. From the mores of the Colonial period to the roles that Hollywood, the CIA, and Wall Street played in depicting Cuba as a "police state" for gays and in reinforcing the oppression, this overview provides a backdrop of the past and illustrates the persecution and exploitation originally planted by Spanish colonialism and further cultivated by U.S. capitalism. Details on the gradual transformation follow as the narrative examines the impact of the political and institutional initiatives taken by Fidel Castro and the Cuban leadership to overcome bigotry and prejudice against LGBT people--among them free health care and education, guaranteed jobs and housing, special health care for AIDS victims, and widespread sex education.

In the 1990s, expressive culture in the Caribbean was becoming noticeably more feminine. At the annual Carnival of Trinidad and Tobago, thousands of female masqueraders dominated the street festival on Carnival Monday and Tuesday. Women had become significant contributors to the performance of calypso and soca, as well as the musical development of the steel pan art form. Drawing upon ethnographic fieldwork conducted by the author in Trinidad and Tobago, What She Go Do demonstrates how the increased access and agency of women through folk and popular musical expressions has improved intergender relations and representation of gender in this nation. This is the first study to integrate all of the popular music expressions associated with Carnival—calypso, soca, and steelband music—within a single volume. The book includes interviews with popular musicians and detailed observation of musical performances, rehearsals, and recording sessions, as well as analysis of reception and use of popular music through informal exchanges with audiences. The popular music of the Caribbean contains elaborate forms of social commentary that allows singers to address various sociopolitical problems, including those that directly affect the lives of women. In general, the cultural environment of Trinidad and Tobago has made women more visible and audible than any previous time in its history. This book examines how these circumstances came to be and what it means for the future development of music in the region.

Winner of the Jewish Music Special Interest Group Paper Prize of 2018 Mazal Tov, Amigos! Jews and Popular Music in the Americas seeks to explore the sphere of Jews and Jewishness in the popular music arena in the Americas. It offers a wide-ranging review of new and old trends from an interdisciplinary standpoint, including history, musicology, ethnomusicology, ethnic studies, cultural studies, and even Queer studies. The contribution of Jews to the development of the music industry in the United States, Argentina, or Brazil cannot be measured on a single scale. Hence, these essays seek to explore the sphere of Jews and popular music in the Americas and their multiple significances, celebrating the contribution of Jewish musicians and Jewishness to the development of new musical genres and ideas.