Posted on January 29, 2008 - by MG
Asere que vola – Habana Abierta
At last Saturday night’s Clave Club I bumped into a long-time salsa aquaintance, Danielle who told me that she’d been reading my blog. It reminded me that it’s been a while since I blogged anything about salsa or Cuba or anything…and there’s a link to my blog from the Cubanisimo regular email newsletter. So maybe it’s time that I did.
My favourite new song from a Cuban band is the brilliant rock/african/funk/salsa fusion track Asere que vola?, by Spain-based Cubans, Habana Abierta.
It’s jazzy, rock and funk, but you sure can dance to it – salsa and reggaeton. ‘Asere que vola?’ translates roughly as ‘Mate, what’s going on?’, but as usual in the translation of colourful street slan, it loses all the sparkle.
The lyrics tell of the news a guy receives from his Cuban mates all over the world – as he asks them via chat, email etc – ‘Asere, que vola?’. It’s cheerful, joyful, ironic, full of wonder at the outside world (I heard that in Denmark it’s brutally cold!) that these lucky young Cubans find themselves in…because most Cubans can only dream of seeing the rest of the world. But as always with Cubans outside Cuba, there’s sorrow and homesickness for the island.
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January 29, 2008
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Wow! I love the bits at 0:51 and 1:08.
I love foreign languages, they’re so…foreign! Once i spent a whole hour watching to spanish parliment or something similar. The language is just so awesome!
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January 29, 2008
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And Cuban spanish is particularly cool. I love how he sings (over the chorus bit you like so much Lukas) ‘Mi hermano como te va, De donde tu me llamas, de donde tu e’ta?’ which means ‘Hey brother, how ya doing? Where are you calling from? Where you at?’ But in ordinary, grammatically correct Spanish that wouldn’t sound nearly as cool. They also say ‘Ya tu sabes’, which is a soooo cool way of saying ‘As you know…’
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July 10, 2010
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HOW CAN I GET A COPY OF THIS SONG?
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July 10, 2010
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You can download the single as an MP3 from their album on Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/Boomerang/dp/B000TEVKO2/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=dmusic&qid=1278755911&sr=8-2