Author: Uroš Švagan
Estimated read time: 10 minutes

This article is part of a four-part saga about timba history and development.
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These days, Cuba is on its (very slow) path to prosperity, therefore contemporary timba does not feed on the scourge of crisis. Its frontmen are not the most scandalously dressed Cubans anymore, and do not worship capitalist values in their performances and lyrics. But it is also true that what was scandalous in the 1990s, became the norm in the new millennium. The crown of the main provocateurs has been passed to hip hop and reggaeton artists. Meanwhile, timba has grown up and built its competitive advantage purely on music. Contemporary timba seems slightly more melodic, fuses influences from even wider range of musical genres, more often integrates Cuban folklore, revives the forgotten genres such as pilón, incorporates reggaeton, as well as wider Caribbean musical styles.

The sound of timba recordings are much clearer today then they were in the 1990s. Cuba has invested a lot into state-of-the-art studios. As technology advances, prices of professional recording equipment became much more reasonable, and many musicians such as Manolito Simonet have started building their studios in the basements of their homes.

​In Cuba, timba is compelled to compete with imported music styles which can be produced by an averagely skilled computer geek and are much simpler in form. As such it is much closer to Cuban youth. Reggaeton is on one hand quite different from timba, but its approach resembles the timba in the 1990s. Provocative lyrics, scandalous fashion, the glorification of materialism, sex, and prostitution. To compete purely with musical elements is becoming an increasingly difficult task even in Cuba. But nevertheless, timba is regaining its share in the Cuban media, and is becoming ever more popular.

Author: Uroš Švagan
Estimated read time: 10 minutes

This article is part of a four-part saga about timba history and development.

​The rise and fall of timba

In the previous articles we described the qualities that make timba such a unique music genre, and the artists that contributed to its development. In this article we explore the rise and fall of timba itself.

The key role in the development of timba is largely attributed to the flutist José Luis Cortés 'El Tosco'. In the 1970s El Tosco was a member of Los Van Van, but switched to Irakere in the 1980’s. In 1988 he formed a side project, a sort of super group called Nueva Generación. Their ambitious goal was to set future direction of Cuban music. El Tosco established the concept and the structure of the music which is being followed by timba musicians to this day. In fact, it is hard to say that he came up with something totally new - what El Tosco did differently was to collect existing concepts from different music genres, and connected them in a very intelligent way. He renamed the group to NG La Banda, to allow for alternative sarcastic interpretations of the NG abbreviation. Their first album was released in 1989, under the title En La Calle (On the street).

1989 was the year when the Eastern Bloc started collapsing. Cuba lost its main export destination, leading to economic meltdown, the período especial. To alleviate the pain, the country started opening up by promoting tourism, opening music venues and reviving a bustling nightlife in its major cities. To cope with inflation it legalized the US dollar and stimulated simple entrepreneurial concepts. Since it couldn’t pay salaries to musicians anymore, the government finally let the artists keep the money from their record and ticket sales.

​Tourists attended concerts and spent their dollars. As a result, timba artists came out as the winners of the economic crisis. When the average salary in Cuba was a mere $20 a month, the most popular timba artists could earn as much as $12.000. They became the role models who provided a major infusion of hope that there is the way out of the miserable situation. Timba offered an escapist route, thriving on the wasteland of Cuban economy.

Manolín 'El Médico de la Salsa' provoked the government by singing about moving to Miami in his song Que Le Llegue Mi Mano (Let my hand reach him [Cuban]). In the El Puente (Bridge) coro, Manolin sang about the bridge between Havana and Miami, which apparently some officials took too literally. Seemingly dumb lyrics were in fact the reflection of the street sentiment. Other timba protagonists avoided provocation, but emphasized musical innovation, such as Paulo FG y Su Élite, Manolito Simonet y Su Trabuco in Issac Delgado.

Charanga's songs frequently praised materialism, sex tourism and drugs. Such an outburst would have probably gone completely unnoticed in a small club, but was at that time viewed by 100.000 people and recorded by multiple international TV stations.
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The government’s response was excessive, and resulted in six month ban of Charanga Habanera from radio as well as from live performances. Timba clubs came under scrutiny of the authorities, and regular raids under a pretense of anti-prostitution measures struck a serious blow to timba. 

In Cuba, musicians started avoiding provocation and adopted their lyrics for subsequent releases. Paulo FG y Su Elite seemed to have lost their creativity. Internationally, timba was completely overshadowed by Buena Vista Social Club, a project started by American multiinstrumentalist and composer Ry Cooder with good connections in the American music industry and thus, a great deal of support from the multinational record companies.

But the music itself has never really gone into a decline. In merely lost its popularity at a certain time due to lack of support from media and Cuban government. The undescribable momentum that was felt by those who were a part of it was gone. Charanga Habanera apologized and could perform after a complete reformation of the cast. The band Lazarito Valdés y Su Bamboleo was born, and later Leonel Limonta y Azúcar Negra from it. Manolito Simonet y Su Trabuco released their breakthrough album Marcando La Distancia in 1998, when the repression was already taking place.

By that time, timba was also adopted by the precursors of the genre such as Los Van Van, Orquesta Revé, and Adalberto Álvarez. Perhaps the biggest recognition that timba has ever received was the Grammy for the Los Van Van album Llego Van Van. upy left Van Van in 2001 after 32 years with them, and formed Pupy y Los Que Son Son.

In the beginning of the new millennium, reggaeton started gaining mainstream popularity in Cuba. When it has already seemed that timba would never become popular again, the former trumpet player from Paulo FG y Su Élite formed his own band in 2008, called Havana D'Primera… 

Continued in Part 4.

Author: Uroš Švagan
Estimated read time: 10 minutes

This article is part of a four-part saga about timba history and development.
​

In the previous article we emphasized the qualities of timba. Now, we are ready to move forward to the social circumstances that contributed to its development, as well as the predecessors of timba - the artists that contributed to its sound with their innovations before timba's time. 

The Cuban revolution and social change

In January 1959 Fidel Castro enters Havana. What followed the revolution was nationalization, a dispute with the US, and the subsequent decline of the tourist industry. Cuban music and the dance industries started going through radical changes. In 1962, the ENA (Escuelas Nacionales de Arte) was established as the school that enabled many Cubans access to free music education. The same year saw the formation of Conjunto Folklórico Nacional, a dance group that is still reviving the wide spectrum of Cuban folkloric dances.

However, most post-revolutionary changes were not so positive. Cuban record companies were nationalized into EGREM (Empresa de Grabaciones y Ediciones Musicales), which established and held a monopoly for decades. Dance clubs were closing, musicians became state employees with regular salaries independent of the record and ticket sales. Successful musicians started emigrating. Thus, Cuban music started separating into the Cuban music in the United States, and the one at home on the island.

Cuban musical crisis and the start of a new fire

In the 60's and 70's island dance music ran into a huge crisis. The only thriving musical concept became the nueva trova, a term describing patriotic revolution worshiping singer-songwriters with guitars. In 1963, Pello El Afrokan created a new rhythm called mozambique, which remained completely local and insignificant in comparison to prerevolutionary genres of the worldwide fame, such as mambo, chacha, son, etc. 

In the meantime, Cuban music in the United States remained more faithful to its roots in son. In 1970’s, the migration of Latinos into the US led to the development of salsa. When US salsa artists (Héctor Lavoe, Fania All Stars, etc.) first came to Havana in 1979, their performance was poorly received, and marked as the capitalist falsification of Cuban music. Only a couple of years later, a very positive reception of Venezuelan Oscar D'León triggered a short period of salsa boom in Cuba. As most of elements of salsa had already been present in Cuban son, it is hard to consider off-island salsa to be a major influence on timba.

Nevertheless, the salsa boom triggered a renewed interest in son on the island. In the 1980s, Adalberto Álvarez y Su Son drew their sound closer to salsa. To regain popularity, Los Van Van introduced trombones to their instrumentation, but kept the charanga and rock elements in their music. They emphasized the clave rhythmic backbone, but started using rumba clave instead of the more mainstream son clave pattern. Orquesta Revé made similar adjustments, but remained deeply rooted in changüí, the predecesor of son. This brief period of imported salsa was soon to be overshadowed by domestic artists, with music closer to the taste of Cuban audiences.

Even though the aforementioned bands did not start the timba movement, they contributed with their innovations to the sound of the modern Cuban dance music. These bands served as talent agencies for musicians that began innovating timba some decades later. In the next article we outline how timba started from these innovations.  Let's start by teleporting ourselves to 1989, the year that marks the release of the first timba album proper.

Continued in Part 3.

Author: Uroš Švagan
Estimated read time: 10 minutes

This article is part of a four-part saga about timba history and development.
​

Timba's rhythmic structures use autochthonous instruments in a highly syncopated manner, completely incomparable to any other style of music. Its melodic and harmonic structures can easily be compared to jazz and sophisticated chansons. From a lyrical point of view, timba is highly contradictory. On one hand it deals with deeply religious subjects and, on the other hand, with extremely obscene ones. In between the seemingly innocent lines lacking complexity is the whole universe of metaphoric provocations, reflecting the sentiment of the Cuban street. Nevertheless, timba is a very pleasurable and upbeat despite the aforementioned complexity. Even when touching the darker subjects, it always provides much hope and bittersweet optimism. Its syncopated rhythm pushes your body into a hard-to-remain-still mode, while its melodies and harmonies can bring you to tears. Timba is a mirror of the Cuban soul.

Band and song structure

Timba bands are the size of small orchestras, numbering around 15 in strength, which  makes the music quite saturated. The song structure typically avoids the verse-chorus form, but instead implements a more diverse structure where the tension is built using the form resembling a dramatic arc. The songs typically begin with the narrative part, where the story slowly develops. In the montuno section that follows, the song achieves its climax, where the music becomes very lively with a great deal of cunning improvisation.

​Montuno is usually the longest part of the song that gives the dancers a proper chance to show off. Finally, a falling action is followed by denouement. These song segments can be further divided into so called ‘gears’, which define the energy level of a song part. Dancers learn to recognize the song parts, so that they can respond with the energy and movements appropriate for the intensity of the song part.

Let's get started then!

​Timba was invented in the end of 80's and the beginning of 90's, peaking in popularity at around 1995. These days timba might not be as popular as it once was, but is actually a constantly developing music genre gaining in quality and soaking in ever more influences. Timba is always aligned with trends, but never falls prey to them.
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In this series of articles we will present how timba came into existence through social, economic, and political circumstances, and through musical innovations after the Cuban revolution. We will explore its rise and its fall in the 90's. The last article will be dedicated to the modern timba, which is being revived by musicians and dance instructors all over the world. But, when searching for the roots of timba, one can always trace them further back into the history, to the times of indigenous civilizations, Christopher Columbus, the slave trade, and Africa.

​Continued in Part 2.

The third album celebrates the 5th anniversary of the orchestra. The name De Vuelta Al Barrio implies the band has travelled around the world, but is now 'returning to da hood'. According to El Niño's own words, De Vuelta El Barrio is focused on the dancer rather than the listener, as Más Duro was. For decades, Cuban artists have been paid regular state salaries, while the sales profits have gone 'elsewhere'. As a result, the key success factor for a timba artist has never been sales, but touring and the response of the dance community, and the new album is trying to reflect this deeply rooted mentality. If the dancer was indeed the focus, it is interesting to notice the tempo only falling below 100 bpm once during the album.

It seems the primary target were not the European casino perfectionists that are either trying to show off their techniques with slower tempo songs or dance to a fast song all over the place using huge moves and then dying. The band is rather trying to win the hearts and minds of the street dancers from the barrios of Havana, who don't give a fuck about the technique, but just want to be carried away by the tide of emotion while doing less exhausting combinations of despelote and "manos pa'rriba" moments throughout the entire concert. Many songs on the album seem to miss out on the long introductions that slowly turn into montunos, but rather go straight to the boiling point very quickly, allowing the dancers to go crazy right away.

What seemed to be sporadic shouts on previous albums, turned into new Emilio's catchphrases on this album. Not only »Alaroye no, Alaroye y bien«, but also »Dale tumbao Pachy«, »Metales que no miente«, »Vamo' la Verdad«, etc. On one hand it gives the music on the album the vibe of a live act and makes dancers immediately associate the song with the band, but may, on the other hand, show signs of overuse.

The Intro kicks the album off. Rather than being one of those spectacular concert openers, it begins with a quasi field recording of Emilio's return to his barrio, turns into a street descarga, and ends with a few measures of timba. La Princesa de Cayo Hueso stars with a strong rumba beat that slowly turns into timba. While songwriting is quite good, I find Emilio's voice slightly raspy.

Fortunately, his cold is healed in El Primo, a tribute Pacho Alonso, a creator of pilón genre. The chorus is very catchy, and a slight pilón feel can be heard throughout. At one point the brass section introduces a couple of measures from Pacho Alonso's most well known song Rico Pilón. In Las Manzanas, Emilio compares girls with apples. Sometimes they are good and sometimes bad, but its always fun to bite into them.

Emilio's often excessive flirting with cameras is reflected with Tirame La Foto. An interesting choice for the first single is La Cosa Mala, that will soon be released as a video. It is quite stretched out, repetitive one note song with a simple chorus that i do not see standing out in any way. But the strategy of having the weakest song as the first single is a risky, but a smart one, and i've seen it working on some legendary albums. This allows listeners to think the worst song is actually the best one, so each subsequent single is then percieved as even better than the best one.

Cha Pa' Mi Muchacha adds diversity to the album with an easy going romantic chacha rhythm that sounds very authentic as if it really originated in the 1950s. Para Ser Cantante tells us what it means from Emilio's experience to be a singer. Que Clase Cara is a good songwriting example that starts with a romantic melody, and carries a slow tempo in album's terms of 100bpm. Reflexión is a great songwriting example as well, and i must admit that I love it how timba bands started using these kinky synth sounds sporadically, and it works surprisingly well.

A perfect ending to the album is El Nombrecito. Emilio wrote the song while still in the Charangon. Their version was released in 2014, but Emilio did not sing it back then as he already left Elito Reve. It carried a very 'charangonish' production, so i am glad that it was finally rerecorded by his new band. The live video of El Niño y La Verdad's version has nevertheless become one of the band's most viewed videos on Youtube, as it truly captures the essence of the timba live show peak with professional dancers going crazy onstage. Even the new studio version is great and is one of the album's highlights.
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The album will supposedly also come with a video DVD, but we did not recieve it for the review. In my overall experience, with the average song length of above 5 minutes and the fast switches to montunos, I find many songs a bit stretched out. Furthermore, while there is a newly found genre diversity on the album, I would also wish for a larger tempo diversity. In general, the new album is a good continuation and a strengthening of the recognizable sound of El Niño y La Verdad. The band is touring Europe right now, so we can wish the band a good luck, and the dancer's response they were aiming for.

But the longer it takes for the music to reach your heart, the longer it will remain there. Good music is like a good wine – first of all, a taste for it is not inborn but must be developed. Secondly, it gets better as years go by. And thirdly, music like this gets easier to digest when presented to you by an experienced and cosmopolitan music lover.
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We knew the new album was on the horizon, but today's release came as a surprise. Lately, HDP have been releasing a number of individual songs that could have easily found their way on the record, but Havana decided to offer us ten completely fresh and previously unheard songs.
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The title of the album implies that Alexander represents the voice of the people. One would expect such a title to introduce simple music. But timba has never been simple by definition, especially Havana D'Primera. Alexander's people-focus lays in his warm-heartedness. There has always been a spiritual dimension in his music, which is only present in other timba bands to a lesser degree. That undescribable that touches us, reaches far into the depths of our hearts and finds its way to our tears. At first glance one can notice the songs are seasoned with a bunch of studio flavors: from a string orchestra and a saxophone to an electric guitar and synthesized sounds directly from 1980. Additionally, with HDP, crystal clear sound production has never been in doubt.
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#Dprimera offers a striking introduction to the album. The lyrics are trying to remind us that the band is still the best one in Havana. It offers bombastic funky bass lines, which in combination with a lethal dose of trumpets makes it hard to remain indifferent. A joyful atmosphere resembles Resumen de los 90 from their first album.

Cuban music was transformed into timba the moment it became highly eclectic. The big push came in 1989 when timba innovators NG La Banda started putting a bunch of new elements into cuban son: rumba, santeria, hip hop, jazz, mambo, salsa romantica, to mention only a few. Today, such diversity of influences is already the norm, so HDP have always been upgrading their eclecticism to higher levels with some fresh, non-Cuban, mainly Carribean influences. But Cantor del Pueblo is  stepping on a highly dangerous terrain. The song Tres Dias starts as a Dalmatian song, turns itself into a timba song, and then voilà: bachata! The hardcore bachata turns back into timba with a strong contratiempo, but continues to carry a subtle bachata feel throughout the montuno. In my humble opinion this is the first such merger in timba that sounds natural, spontaneous, playful and one could almost say: »Makes sense!«. Even the bachata haters should grow soft on this one! In only a couple of measures Alexander proves that bachata could offer a pleasurable experience to a much wider audience, if only it was supported by a strong masculine voice of a man who still owns a pair of testicles, and a crystal clear sound production. Only time will show if by merging bachata and timba the band inadvertently started a general trend. Absorbtion of new influences should be welcome in the genre which is a strong fusion in itself, but i sincerely doubt that anybody on this planet can merge the seemingly unmergeable in such a refined way as Havana D'Primera.

Personally, i would prefer to see La Mujer Piropo placed at the second half of the album. However, all Alexander's abilities as a composer come to light in the title song Cantor De Pueblo, which carries quite a fragmented structure that distinguishes bad timba from good timba, and timba from other genres of popular music. In the song, Alexander fails to bring his catchphrase  »Vaya camina por arriba el …« to its end, saying »tu sabes« - you know what i mean, I am the voice of the peoples!

Manantiales carries an interesting rock flavour. The beginning of the montuno part introduces a distorted guitar riff, which is then transformed into a virtuoso solo towards the end. Mujerigo is a simple, short and joyful song at 97 bpm that aims to please rueda dancers. But the question remains whether the target audience is ready to accept the absence of computer samples and the missing catchphrase »Berna Jam in da house!«
No Cuban album would be complete without a song describing the magical atmosphere of the country or its capital. I would prefer to see Habana Mia in the third place on the album instead of La Mujer Piropo.

A peculiar off-road adventure is the Energias Oscuras, an Eurovision song contest sounding balad. Such dark energies may signify a novelty for Havana D'Primera, but sound quite worn out in general. The song is completely missing 'the cubania', but can also be viewed in a positive light. If the dark energies aim to bring the new audience into the fanbase and slowly transform these innocent victms into timba maniacs, I can understand this.

Pastilla De Menta carries a pilon connotation, but it is at the same time far from traditional pilon. The bass seems to start each mesure on the same note, which  is not neccessarily a bad thing, but perhaps only surprising for the band which has spoit us over the years with higher melodic sophistication. The choosing of a guitar effect in the middle of the song might be a poor choice, as it brings more noise to the forefront than the actual tone. A distinct rhythm will likely please the audience that is only beginning to explore this kind of music. Personally I will have a hard time not to whistle Michael Jackson's They Don't Care About Us along this song.

A spectacular closing of the album is set by an epochal Lamento Yoruba, a tribute to the roots of cuban culture, which explores many of its aspects from Santeria through rumba to timba. This song might be too fast and too complex for the mainstream dance floor, but listening to it at home will surely bring you towards revelation and convert you to an authentic Santero. In the coming years we can expect a number of virtuoso dance performances to this song.

Whatever Havana D'Primera do, they do it perfectly. If 40% of the songs are excellent and the other 40% are very good, I can easily put this album to my favorite twenty of all time list. I will press Play button once, and perhaps the Skip button once or twice. But the most worn out on my player will be the Repeat button.

Timba: diversity, virtuosity, aggression

​The musical genre of timba emerged from the salsa and songo genres in the late 1980s, when Cuban musicians reacted to the downfall of the Soviet Union - and the resulting period of economic hardship in Cuba - with a musical revolution. They took the foundation of son, salsa, and songo genres, made them more dynamic, showing off their instrumental virtuosity, and integrating the rich legacy of Cuban musical history - most notably Cuban rumba - into it.

We can describe a timba song as follows (from the most, to the least obvious):
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• The song is no longer only a cuerpo/montuno affair, but has many segments (typically called "gears", like in a car) with which it controls its energy: the most characteristic of timba is a gear called PRESION (literally, "pressure"), where, by eliminating specific instruments - typically bass and congas - the song paradoxically emotionally explodes and demands a radical change in dancing.
• Instruments are no longer playing standard patterns; instead, musicians show off and invent new, funkier, and often song-specific rhytmic patterns, which makes timba rhythms more complex and harder to dance to for beginners, compared to salsa.
• The rhythmic backbone of the song is often the rumba clave rhythm.
• New instruments are added to the typical salsa set, most notably rock drums and the electric guitar.

Enough of theory, let's see how timba sounds like :)

Ese Soy Yo by Rene Alvarez y su Cuban Combination