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Global Hits
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The World (PRI), Global Hits >>
The deep freeze in US-Cuban relations has kept many talented Cuban musicians from American audiences. The Buena Vista Social Club introduced us to some of the island's music veterans. But Buena Vista also had a downside according to longtime Cuban music producer Ned Sublette.
Sublette: I think one of the unfortunate things about the Buena Vista phenomenon was it got people thinking that there weren't young musicians in Cuba. And they grow them in vats.
Yusa is the name of one young musician emerging from those vats. She's already known in Europe her record label is in England. And the British music press calls her the sound of 21st century Cuba.
Yusa sings songs like "Tomando el Centro," or taking the center. She writes wise but intriguing lines like "watch out, modernity will use you like a garment." Yusa's love of language comes out of her connection to the Cuban musical style known as "nueva trova." It's more singer-songwriter than it is mambo dance music. But Yusa can do both. When Ned Sublette first met her 8 years ago, she was performing in an all-female dance band. At the time, she was playing the Cuban guitar known as the tres. That in itself, says Sublette, is rare.
Sublette: You don't see many female treseras. The tres is the instrument that is sort of the Cuban modification of the guitar with three double strings in it. It doesn't play solo parts hardly at all, it's an inside part. But if you play tres, you're flavor master cuz your job is to keep this counter rhythm going while the bass is playing against you, so you can already sustain a polyrhythm and you gotta keep it tasty.
Now that she's on her own, Yusa is creating a different kind of tastiness.
Yusa's musical upbringing is key to her sound. She's classically trained, she was a dance guitarist and now she's a singer songwriter. But equally important says ned sublette is her own family.
Sublette: Her father is a sailor and her mother is an economist. And in Cuba, this can happen easily. You know this is the kind of juxtaposition of sensibilities which you find. Which is why this record, um, this record is an intelligent pop record. It's lyrically intelligent. It's the kind of record that we don't make much in this country.
Yusa's debut release is entitled Yusa. She writes all the songs.
For The World, I'm Marco Werman 01/10/03 >> go there
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