Amid the usual pop star flash, a more inclusive and politically charged Latin Grammys
by Suzy Exposito, Los Angeles Times
Nov 19, 2021
4 minutes
Inside a maximum security prison in Pinar del Rio, Cuba, a rapper named Maykel “Osorbo” Castillo Perez is currently on hunger strike. He has been jailed since May, after he co-wrote and recorded the song “Patria y Vida” with exiled Cuban artists Gente de Zona, Yotuel, Descemer Bueno and Eliecer “el Funky” Marquez Duany.
This summer, thousands of Cubans took to the streets chanting those words, which mean “homeland and life” — an inversion of the late President Fidel Castro’s slogan “homeland or death” — in protest of power outages, food shortages and subpar health care amid the ongoing pandemic. Osorbo was beaten
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