By Alejandra Garcia on February 17, 2022 from Havana
Buena Fe
Cubans of my generation grew up listening to the songs of the musical duo Buena Fe and the first concerts I went to as a teenager were theirs. I know every album, every hit and all their lyrics. I watched with pride as their popularity took off in other countries since friends from other latitudes began to ask me about these singers of Catalejo, Tras tus pies, and Corazonero.
Buena Fe is led by Israel Rojas, who is the composer of all the songs and the lead vocalist, and Joel Martinez, who plays acoustic guitar and is the second voice of the group. Together they have filled stadiums in their homeland and theaters in Latin American, North American, and European countries.
They recently made headlines not for their music but for their decision to postpone a group of concerts they had planned in Canada, due to the fact that Justin Trudeau’s government does not recognize Cuban vaccin. The organizers of the events urged them to receive doses from any pharmaceuticals with immunizers recognized by that country so they could enter but Buena Fe, putting their principles first, said no.
“We are not going to go play in a place that requires us to receive vaccines that are not ours,” Israel Rojas said recently in a message spread through social networks. The story dates back to 2020 when the renowned Cuban duo organized along with the Canadian company Okokan Productions a tour in that country to present their latest album, Carnal (2018).
Unfortunately, COVID-19 forced the group to postpone for one year the shows that were scheduled in the cities of Toronto, Montreal, and Edmonton, whose tickets were sold out almost immediately. Despite the forced delay, none of the attendees asked for their money back.
In 2021, the world scenario was not much different from the previous year. Due to the health emergency, Buena Fe once again postponed their presentation, and once again, no one requested to cancel their tickets.
Amidst the decline in cases following the recent surge of the Omicron variant, Israel Rojas and his partner, Joel Martinez, resumed tour plans but were again postponed to a new date yet to be defined due to vaccine discrepancies.
“If we can’t enter Canada because that government doesn’t recognize Cuban vaccines, then we won’t go. I know and trust the science based team that developed them here. How could I have the double standard of immunizing myself with foreign doses just to give a concert? Whoever wants to listen to our music will have to accept that we are vaccinated with Soberana and Abdala,” Israel commented.
“The right thing to do will be to wait for the cases to become more flexible, for the Cuban vaccines to be recognized, for the pandemic to calm down. Fortunately, we can see that it is diminishing in some countries. We have great faith that sooner rather than later we will be able to do these concerts,” Rojas said.
The Canadian company assured that those who purchased tickets are already receiving their refunds and explained that they canceled the activities four and a half months in advance so that the Cuban artists, the contracted stages, and the group’s fans have enough time to reschedule their plans.
“Our first opportunity to work with Buena Fe was in 2017, in the cities of Toronto and Montreal, and they were incredibly successful there. We decided that eventually, once the band released a new project, we would put together another tour,” the entertainment company told the local press.
When Buena Fe released their album Carnal, the most intimate album the duo has released in their 24-year career, Okokan Productions decided to start thinking about a three-city Canadian tour in May 2020. “That’s how we signed a contract with the band, but then came the pandemic and the rest of the story is already known”.
With all the political campaigns that have been mobilized against Cuba in recent months -such as Patria y Vida- Buena Fe has not gone unnoticed, particularly by the extreme right-wing Cuban groups based in Miami, financed and encouraged by the industry of hate against Cuba in that city, and who receive a lot of media attention.
Since the group decided not to offer concerts in May of this year, a small group of people -motivated by the Miami ultra-right-wing- circulated a petition for the Canadian government to prohibit Buena Fe from performing at all, but the request did not gain traction and was signed mostly by a few Cubans living outside the island.
About this campaign, Israel said that it is simply a matter of people of “bad faith. They call us enemies when we only want to present out music, spread love, sell a pleasant moment, relieve nostalgia. We just want to have ‘good faith’,” he said.
Rojas added, “Those who call for the cancellation of concerts in acts of repudiation and boycott and profess hatred towards Cuba call themselves Defenders of Freedom. It would seem that they live in an upside-down world.”
Buena Fe will schedule the tour when the time is right, and it is safe to do so. In the meantime, my generation here will say that this group, that marked our steps on the island since we were born, will always be a reason for pride. The strength of my country lies in the dignity of its people and this cherished musical group of ours is one more example.
Source: Resumen Latinoamericano – English