“El Tarzan de las cues”, a musical theme performed by Alejandro García “Virulo” and Kelvis Ochoa to ridicule the so-called “coleros” and the people who all over Cuba are concentrated in front of the few markets where basic necessities are sold, has caused the outraged reaction of hundreds of social media users.
The song and the accompanying video, produced by the Ministry of Culture (MINCULT) and the state label EGREM, were released on November 26, 2020 and were just released, But after its recent display on national television people learned of its existence.
“Virulo”, who is also the author of the song “Amb Cuba no et metes”, MINCULT’s response to the Sant Isidre Movement and the 27N collective, is ironic in the lyrics of “El Tarzan de las queues “from the anecdote that circulated last summer about individuals who since the morning climbed trees in the vicinity of shops to mark in queues without being detected by the police, who banned crowds in these places.
This solution, among others used by people to make their purchases in the midst of the severe deprivation that the island has suffered since before the Covid-19 pandemic, is commented by the letter assuring that ” there are people who take advantage / of so much need / if the angry ones are bad / it is bad what splashes / it is bad what allows it / and it harms us all “.
The song, which since its premiere on YouTube and until the closing of this note has just over 3,500 views, 200 “I don’t like” reactions and less than 100 “Likes”, has provoked harsh criticism on the networks. social.
“This product expands the list of messes with which the power in Cuba distracts attention from the problems it has, has created and refuses to solve.”, Pointed out on his Facebook wall the artist Julio Llopiz-Casal.
“It is very helpful to insist that the choleros are the culprits that so many Cubans today have barely anything to bring food to their tables (…) In the same way, they insist that Covid’s cases go up because people do not care, or that the current Cuban economy is collapsing (as Abel Prieto said last December 5 in front of a group of young artists) because of the embargo and not because of the megalithic inability of the administration central state to release the productive forces, energize the system and energize themselves in passing, “he said.
Also artist Janet Batet commented in her own publication: “Naturalizing the tail is already a rude and cynical aberration. Blaming the colero is more of the same thing: that of ‘give what you didn’t give’. To divert attention. To make people seek to cause their genuine frustration against another victim engendered by the same system. What such sinister characters these lend themselves to for such a petty game. Alien shame. I wonder how they can sleep. “
“The worst thing is that these people lived off capitalism for so many years and I doubt they have queued up in Cuba … they are dirty.”, Sahily Borrero stressed, referring to the years in which Ochoa and “Virulo” resided in Spain and Mexico, respectively.
Also the artist Camila Lobón, activist of the 27N, underlined in her own wall: “It is terrible that to trivialize the tragedy in the service of the power that the cause and to the height of its ages, would not have to allow similar nonsense, if not hypocrisy, because I doubt that these musicians queue up to do them, unless they are enlightened or masochistic, they would know that there is no comedy in hours, days, months, years, of life and work. wasted on bad food and living badly “.
For his part, the journalist José Raúl Gallego recalled: “When they go to call ‘paid’ those who put their art or work based on criticizing what is wrong in Cuba, remember that this ‘anthem against cholera’ and other similar issues are sponsored (paid) by the Ministry of Culture, the Institute of Music and the EGREEM (public money, from all of us) “.
The video of the song has gone viral while the official media, MINCULT, UNEAC and Miguel Díaz-Canel himself, among other officials, charge against the issue “Homeland and Life”, which the former minister of Culture Abel Prieto described it as “a musical pamphlet” and “a strategy associated with the change of mandate in the United States and the fear of Florida’s most extreme groups of a transformation in bilateral politics.”