Making meaning by default. Timba and the challenges of escapist music
- Autores: Vincenzo Perna
- Localización: Trans : Transcultural Music Review = Revista Transcultural de Música, ISSN-e 1697-0101, Nº. 9, 2005
- Idioma: inglés
- Enlaces
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Resumen
The article examines timba as a form of discourse inscribed in the influential notion of the black Atlantic formulated by Paul Gilroy. It makes the case of timba as a type of non-engaged music which, while presenting itself as emphatically escapist, during the 1990s has in fact become intensely political in the way it has articulated a discourse challenging dominant views on race, class, gender and nation. Significantly, Gilroy`s analysis pays a special attention to music and dance, considering them as foundational elements of black diasporic culture. Such role of music and dance can be seen at work in timba, where they have challenged the conventional meaning of political song. Contrary to writers who have tried to reduce timba to an ephemeral occurrence of the 1990s, the article contends that música bailable (dance music) continues to represent the most visible black Cuban subcultural mass expression, and possibly one of the most significant cultural forms emerged from the island during the last century, where it has appeared able to negotiate a place between a sense of belonging and a vision of modernity that holds a central place in the identity of contemporary Afro-Cubans.
