Patria y Vida

The title turns a slogan inside out. In March 1960, after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro coined the phrase Patria o muerte, homeland or death, and it became one of the government's watchwords. Released on 16 February 2021 by Yotuel Romero, Descemer Bueno, Maykel Osorbo, El Funky and Gente de Zona, this reggaeton song answered with homeland and life. Its lyrics criticise the government, call for freedom instead of doctrine, and refer to recent events: the arrest of the rapper Denis Solís, the detention of San Isidro Movement members after their hunger strike, food shortages and the falling value of the peso. The video, shot in Havana and Miami, passed a million YouTube views within three days. The response from the state was fierce. The Communist Party newspaper Granma ran three articles attacking the song and called its authors rats chasing YouTube views. The government banned it from being played. The attacks turned the phrase into a symbol: days after the release, two activists in Havana were arrested for painting it on the front of their house, and in May Maykel Osorbo, who appears in the video, was arrested on charges of inciting public disorder. On 11 July 2021, when protests broke out in San Antonio de los Baños and Palma Soriano and spread across Cuba, demonstrators chanted the title in the streets. Later that year it won Song of the Year at the Latin Grammy Awards. Few songs have so quickly become the voice of a moment.