The great Cuban saxophonist Paquito D'Rivera delivered a strong message to the Brazilian singer-songwriter Chico Buarque during an interview with CiberCuba: "Someone tell Chico Buarque that there is a Grammy award imprisoned in Cuba."
D'Rivera refers to Maykel Osorbo (Maykel Castillo Pérez), a Cuban rapper and co-author of "Patria y Vida," who won two Latin Grammys in November 2021 —Best Urban Song and Song of the Year— while he was detained by the Cuban State Security since May of that year.
"Maykel Osorbo is imprisoned for singing. Why doesn't Chico Buarque want to understand that? Why hasn't anyone told him that there is a person, a Grammy winner, in prison for singing a song they didn't like?" D'Rivera asked, indignantly.
Osorbo was sentenced in June 2022 to nine years in prison on charges of contempt, assault, public disorder, and defamation, and is currently serving his sentence in the maximum-security prison Kilo 5 y Medio, in Pinar del Río.
The musician, with over 70 years of career and 18 Grammy Awards, pointed directly at Silvio Rodríguez for his complicit silence: "Why doesn't Silvio say that to Chico Buarque? Because he knows."
The questioning of Silvio came days after the troubadour received, on March 20, a symbolic replica of an AKM rifle at an official event presided over by Díaz-Canel, after he published on his blog that he demanded the weapon to "confront" a possible American intervention.
"After I give him a shooting lesson with his AKM, he should tell Chico Buarque that there are people imprisoned for singing and protesting," D'Rivera sarcastically remarked.
The saxophonist also reported the case of a 16-year-old boy from Morón imprisoned by the regime: "There is a boy accused, a kid from Morón, who is 16 years old and is in jail for sabotage. His sabotage was shouting down with the dictatorship."
D'Rivera was categorical in assessing the attitude of the musical community towards repression in Cuba: "Musicians have not done much for Cuba's freedom. That is the truth."
To illustrate that silence, he turned to a quote from Martin Luther King: "What pains me the most is not the wickedness of the bad, but the silence of the good. And among those are many of us, many musicians, many good fellow countrymen, but in silence."
The interview with journalist Tania Costa took place a day after Díaz-Canel granted his first interview to an American television network, the Meet the Press program on NBC News, hosted by Kristen Welker, in which the leader refused to resign and questioned whether the question came from the State Department.
D'Rivera described the Cuban political situation as a "tragicomic comedy" and expressed confidence that the regime will ultimately fall, comparing the situation to the collapse of the Soviet Union: "What began must end. I am convinced that something has to happen."
He also commented that he hopes Cubans do not accept for the Island "the little joke" that Americans made in Venezuela, referring to the transition led by Maduro's right-hand woman, Delcy Rodriguez.
The musician, who went into exile in May 1980 during an Irakere tour by seeking asylum at Barajas Airport in Madrid, also warned that any transition must involve a real change of power: "The same people who destroyed it will not be able to rebuild it because they don't know how to do it."
Chico Buarque, 81-year-old Brazilian singer-songwriter and emblematic figure of the Latin American left, has not made any known public statements regarding the repression in Cuba or the case of Maykel Osorbo.
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