El Boni remembers how he was accused of desertion and prohibited from returning to Cuba.

Ebblis Mai Valdivia did not definitively leave Cuba with the intention of emigrating or seeking a better future. El Boni was accused of deserting his land and his audience, and was prohibited from returning to the island.

The tough moment he experienced with his brother Kelly Valdivia when they were forced to make a living and start from scratch in another country was a topic of conversation in a recent interview for the podcast "Destino Tolk".

The Cuban singer recounted that after recording an album with his brother in the Dominican Republic, at that time they formed the duo Boni and Kelly, they were invited to open a concert in Panama for a charity event that would feature big music stars such as Shakira, Juan Luis Guerra, Rubén Blades, David Bisbal, among others.

However, the denials soon emerged from a manager of his company in Cuba: "They did not want us to go, for them it was 'ideological diversionism', the typical idiot of the company who creates obstacles, he told us to tell Juan Luis Guerra to come speak with us, madness."

"They told us no, and that if we carried out that event and did not return within the time frame they specified, we would be considered traitors and deserters," the singer continued.

Boni and Kelly decided to travel to Panama. They performed at the concert, shared the stage with those renowned artists, "and two days later when we were going back, we couldn't return to Cuba anymore. The airline had canceled our flight and when we called the company they told us we were deserters, that we had betrayed the public, and all that nonsense that makes no sense. They wouldn't let us come back, so we had to start a new life from scratch in the Dominican Republic.

“I always say when you are ready to stay in another country, leave your country, you prepare yourself, you say goodbye to your mom, to your family, we left thinking that we would come back (...) Our poor mother went every day to the Ministry of Culture to the Institute of Music, they would give her the runaround, mistreat her, and humiliate her, and she did it every day and waited to see if they would attend to her,” confessed El Boni.

After five or six years working in music in the Dominican Republic and then in Spain, completely disconnected from the Cuban public, they were able to return to the island, but it was very difficult to regain their career in Cuba, until they decided to move to Miami.