Acknowledgments xi

Introduction 1

1. ¡Hip Hop, Revolución!: Nationalizing Rap in Cuba 33

2. The Revolution of the Body: Reggaetón and the Politics of Dancing 108

3. The Havana You Don't Know: Urban Music and the Late Socialist City 178

4. Cuban Hip Hop All Stars: Transnationalism and the Politics of Representation 244

Conclusion. The Rise and Fall of Havana Hip Hop 334

Notes 365

Bibliography 383

Index 401

“[A] lively, personal examination of Havana’s street music, dance, and politics. . . . In tracing the history of rap and reggaetón, Baker makes a major contribution to the understanding of Cuban popular music and the global commercial success of rap music. Highly recommended.” — L. Hendricks, Choice

“Buena Vista in the Club is an essential addition to the growing scholarship on global hip hop. Baker adds to this scholarship in two significant ways. First, unlike his predecessors, he refuses to isolate the study of rap from reggaetón, preferring instead to analyze the interplay between the two genres. Second, he takes reflexivity to a new level by revealing the ways in which the works of foreign journalists and scholars have shaped the representation of Cuban rap and facilitated its success.” — Jerome Camal, Labour/Le Travail

“Buena Vista in the Club is an excellent contribution to the fields of Cuban cultural studies, hip hop studies, and world music studies. Baker opens up new areas for further inquiry into the role of the foreign scholar, bodily discourse within popular forms, and close readings of Cuba’s principal hip hop group today, Los Aldeanos.”
— Naomi Pueo Wood, The Latin Americanist

“Buena Vista is Baker’s second book on music in Latin America and is a valuable contribution to Duke University Press’s Refiguring American Music series. This series, edited by Ronald Radano and Josh Kun, questions and confronts the dominant narratives framing the study of American music. In meeting the broad aims of the series, Baker throws a wide net that encompasses hip hop and reggaetón, as well as frameworks of race, politics, economies, globalisation and urban studies. It speaks greatly of Baker that this book maintains a sense of immediacy and detail as these broad strands are woven together. Baker’s contribution will undoubtedly lead to further debate on Cuban hip hop. . . .” — Colter Harper, Popular Music

“In Buena Vista in the Club, University of London Music Professor Geoffrey Baker examines the rise and fall of Cuban hip-hop.... This retrospective looks at the evolution of the Cuban hip-hop industry and how it has affected Cuban society, politics, and Havana’s relationship with the New York music industry.” — NACLA Report on the Americas

“The major strength of Buena Vista in the Club lies in its description of the complicated informal markets and underground venues where hip hop and reggaetón have proliferated, as well as in its self-reflexive analysis of the field of Cuban hip hop studies. . . . Baker’s book is the culmination of seven years of research on the Cuban urban music scene. It gives a critical analysis of Cuban hip hop and offers a perspective on hip hop as a transnational movement, paying attention to the singularities and commonalities of the global phenomenon.” — Ana Paulina Lee, e-misferica

“The text is both extremely readable, for its accessible language, and academically rigorous, for the bibliographic references…. [T]he book is a thorough study of the politics of style in hip hop and reggaetón in Cuba. Baker demonstrates a deep knowledge of the discourses surrounding the representation of the Cuban rap scene produced by academia and the media.” — Jeanette Bello Mota, International Journal of Cuban Studies

“Overall, this is a valuable contribution to the literature on Cuban music, and a rare treatment of the flows regarding social space and capital in Havana. The text seems geared toward readers in the fields of ethnomusicology, sociology, and history, though anthropology and political science might benefit as well.” — Lauren Eldridge, Callaloo

“[T]he book represents a seminal contribution to hip-hop and Cuban musical studies; I recommend it highly.” — Robin Moore, Latin American Music Review

“[A] lively, personal examination of Havana’s street music, dance, and politics. . . . In tracing the history of rap and reggaetón, Baker makes a major contribution to the understanding of Cuban popular music and the global commercial success of rap music. Highly recommended.” —L. Hendricks, Choice

“Buena Vista in the Club is an essential addition to the growing scholarship on global hip hop. Baker adds to this scholarship in two significant ways. First, unlike his predecessors, he refuses to isolate the study of rap from reggaetón, preferring instead to analyze the interplay between the two genres. Second, he takes reflexivity to a new level by revealing the ways in which the works of foreign journalists and scholars have shaped the representation of Cuban rap and facilitated its success.” —Jerome Camal, Labour/Le Travail

“Buena Vista in the Club is an excellent contribution to the fields of Cuban cultural studies, hip hop studies, and world music studies. Baker opens up new areas for further inquiry into the role of the foreign scholar, bodily discourse within popular forms, and close readings of Cuba’s principal hip hop group today, Los Aldeanos.”
—Naomi Pueo Wood, The Latin Americanist

“Buena Vista is Baker’s second book on music in Latin America and is a valuable contribution to Duke University Press’s Refiguring American Music series. This series, edited by Ronald Radano and Josh Kun, questions and confronts the dominant narratives framing the study of American music. In meeting the broad aims of the series, Baker throws a wide net that encompasses hip hop and reggaetón, as well as frameworks of race, politics, economies, globalisation and urban studies. It speaks greatly of Baker that this book maintains a sense of immediacy and detail as these broad strands are woven together. Baker’s contribution will undoubtedly lead to further debate on Cuban hip hop. . . .” —Colter Harper, Popular Music

“In Buena Vista in the Club, University of London Music Professor Geoffrey Baker examines the rise and fall of Cuban hip-hop.... This retrospective looks at the evolution of the Cuban hip-hop industry and how it has affected Cuban society, politics, and Havana’s relationship with the New York music industry.” —NACLA Report on the Americas

“The major strength of Buena Vista in the Club lies in its description of the complicated informal markets and underground venues where hip hop and reggaetón have proliferated, as well as in its self-reflexive analysis of the field of Cuban hip hop studies. . . . Baker’s book is the culmination of seven years of research on the Cuban urban music scene. It gives a critical analysis of Cuban hip hop and offers a perspective on hip hop as a transnational movement, paying attention to the singularities and commonalities of the global phenomenon.” —Ana Paulina Lee, e-misferica

“The text is both extremely readable, for its accessible language, and academically rigorous, for the bibliographic references…. [T]he book is a thorough study of the politics of style in hip hop and reggaetón in Cuba. Baker demonstrates a deep knowledge of the discourses surrounding the representation of the Cuban rap scene produced by academia and the media.” —Jeanette Bello Mota, International Journal of Cuban Studies

“Overall, this is a valuable contribution to the literature on Cuban music, and a rare treatment of the flows regarding social space and capital in Havana. The text seems geared toward readers in the fields of ethnomusicology, sociology, and history, though anthropology and political science might benefit as well.” —Lauren Eldridge, Callaloo

“[T]he book represents a seminal contribution to hip-hop and Cuban musical studies; I recommend it highly.” —Robin Moore, Latin American Music Review

“A careful, incisive examination of the cultural politics and history of hip-hop in Havana—including its contentious relationship to reggaeton’s insurgent populism, blatant commercialism, and avoidance of explicit politics—Buena Vista in the Club gives readers a lucid tour of the complex spatial and ideological ground occupied by rap in Cuba. Foregrounding the interplay between state institutions, local artists, and foreign intellectuals, Geoffrey Baker provides a necessary and nuanced account of the myriad negotiations involved in ‘nationalizing’ hip-hop in a place with such a fraught but close relationship to the United States. This book offers a crucial historiographical contribution to studies of hip-hop’s global resonance and local meanings.” — Wayne Marshall, co-editor of, Reggaeton

“This masterful portrait of the rap and reggaetón scenes in modern Cuba surpasses existing work in its level of insight, depth, and contemporaneity. Geoffrey Baker offers a thoroughly original street-level ethnography of the local rap scene and illuminates the often contradictory workings of the various bureaucratic institutions involved in popular music. He also develops a significant critique of foreign portrayals of contemporary Cuban music culture and of the local/global dynamics of ‘imitating’ foreign rap (or another genre) as opposed to ‘nationalizing’ it with sprinkles of local musical flavor.” — Peter Manuel, author of, Caribbean Currents: Caribbean Music from Rumba to Reggae

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