On the morning of our meeting with Pedro Luis Ferrer in Havana, we travel in a green ’57 Chevy Biscayne taxi along the four-mile Malecon boulevard and promenade, where ocean waves splash over a few middle-grade students in uniform who seem to have skipped school. On Malecon this early in the morning, we also find four Cuban seniors playing dominoes, countless runners and walkers, and about a dozen mothers strolling their babies. WE continues driving west on 5ta Avenida and pass several large embassies and churches before arriving in the municipality of Playa, where Ferrer lives in an ample yellow house of heavy walls and arched windows and doors, apparently built in the early 1900s.

There’s a robust almond tree in the front yard, which extends shade across the street. There are also several rose bushes, amaryllis, and other tropical plants surrounding the front entrance. On the large covered front porch we find Pedro Luis, his daughter Lena, and the two other members of the band (Lerlys Morales and Basilio Perodin) plugging in their equipment for rehearsal. Actually, this is not a band. This, as Pedro Luis puts it, is “a bunga, an old word from the country. IT means people getting together in small groups playing for the sake of playing. Anyone could bring any instrument – an accordion, a drum, you could have a bottle with a clink-clink sound. And that’s how we play: we rotate instruments, bring in new elements if we want.”

After introductions are made, Lena offers to make espresso and goes inside the house. Pedro Luis sits on a red bench and talks about his new album, Rustico, recently released in the U.S. “Rustico had always been a dream of mine. I worked on it for many years, here, in a modest studio in my house. MLY plan is to record four albums with a rustico flavor. What I mean by rusitco is that rawness, that rough ness in the music. I mean, music without makeup…I want to preserve that rustico feeling to the music. Each album will have its own name and its own logic. The fourth will be more of a world-music album, and the plan is to invite world musicians to work with us. There’s so much music out there, so many rhythms that have always played a secondary role and have never been given the opportunity to shine. And I don’t mean only Cuban music. In the entire world there’s an immensity of musical elements that have never been thoroughly explored.”

This inquisitive nature when it comes to exploring different genres of music has been present since very early in his career. In the 1960s in Havana City, the young Ferrer, who had grown up in a rural area of Cuba, was exposed for the first time to the sounds of modern rock, and he then joined a popular experimental band called Los Dadas. Throughout his career, Ferrer hasn’t discriminated against any genre; he’s played everything from pop to folk to son. “I equally listen to Miguel Matamoros and Peter Gabriel, and I find something in each of them that resonates within me. I make my own music, no matter where the elements come from.”

Following this line, in Rustico, Pedro Luis Ferrer created with versatility a brand-new genre of Cuban music: changuisa, a mix of changui, trova espirituana, and coros de claves. Listening to Rustico it’s hard to ignore its feminine touch, from the very name of the genre (changuisa), to the heavy female vocals, to the lyrics of “Maridos Majaderos,” where lena sings out against bad-tempered husbands.

When Lena returns with a tray of small espresso cups, we ask her about “Maridos Majaderos.” “My father wrote that song for me,” she says, “when I was 12 or 13, to teach me how to sing a guaracha, and I’m still singing it.”

“And,” adds Pedro Luis, “I also wanted to warn her about that kind of man.” He laughs, and we all join him.

Lena, who is now 23 years old and has been blessed with a warm soprano voice, works closely with her father and plays a few instruments for his band. She even takes center stage as lead singer in a few songs on this album, while her father’s takes back-up voices.

“There are songs in our repertoire that have grown, line by line, as Lena grew up,” says Pedro Luis.

“He used to take me to daycare on his shoulders,” adds Lena, “and we would come up with songs on the way there. We are now playing songs.”

“Maridos Majaderos” is not the only track in the album with a strong social commentary. He has created steamy debates by singing about the oppressive feelings Cubans face today, as we can hear the song “¿Como Vivire?” (“How will I live? / If I’m wanted everywhere I go/ if my money is worthless/ if I’m alienated and no one listens/ …Hunger and waiting are allowed/ Are allowed fear and absence/ Love is proscribed”). In fact, because of Ferrer’s reputation for social protest, Rustico wasn’t even produced in Cuba. “It has been years since a Cuban label has proposed that I record anything. The labels here don’t want trouble, so I was forced to find a label outside the country.”

The exile community in Miami should, but doesn’t, embrace his music. It’s because he still lives on the island, and many Cuban Americans staunchly refuse to support the work of musicians who live in Cuba. So Pedro Luis’ music faces a double ban. “It’s a shame how things are,” says Pedro Luis. “It took me a while to figure out how things work, but now it’s clear to me. There are two factions that live off the conflict. The Miami faction – a small group of Cuban Americans – are obviously benefiting monetarily from the conflict. As long as there’s an embargo, the richer they’ll be. Then there’s the other faction here in Cuba. If that conflict [the embargo] wouldn’t exist, then this system wouldn’t make sense.”

An hour after our conversation began, we exchange hugs with Pedro Luis and the other members of his bunga, and as we drive away in the old Chevy we can hear Pedro Luis’ folky voice accompanied by his tres. And we are hopeful that with today’s Cuban music boom Ferrer’s music won’t get lost in the politics.

-Mariela Perez-Simons