The Cuban troubadour and rapper Jorge Lian García Díaz (Kamankola) took the stage at the Kaseya Center in Miami on Saturday night as a special guest of Alejandro Sanz, to perform his protest song "The Cuba I Left" in front of nearly 19,600 people.
Hours before the show, Kamankola announced his participation on Instagram with evident excitement: "I have the tremendous pleasure of being invited by the great Alejandro Sanz tonight."
In the same message, the Cuban artist expressed deep gratitude to the Spanish singer: "Brother, how beautiful you are. Thank you for the smile, the hug, the nickname Giorgio, for giving me your stage and your audience, and above all, thank you for your work and for your life."
On stage, Kamankola performed the rawest verses of his song, released in March 2024: "The Cuba I left was a rotting corpse, a deplorable desert, a pair of bloodless souls. The Cuba I abandoned returned naked, the empty soul laid bare, wasting away love, without remains, without peace, without flowers, dimmed, sad, widowed, without my street, without my land, without my sea, and without my home."
The video of the performance was shared by the Cuban activist Eliécer Ávila, founder of the movement Somos+, who accompanied it with the message: "What excitement and pride! Long live a free Cuba!".
After the concert, Alejandro Sanz posted on Instagram: "Returning to Miami is returning home. Thank you to everyone who enjoyed this night as much as I did. Music is our best reunion."
Kamankola's performance is not an isolated event in that venue. In September 2023, Yotuel Romero sang "Patria y Vida" at the same Kaseya Center during another concert by Sanz, turning the Spanish artist's stage into a recurring space for political expression for Cuban artists in exile.
Kamankola is one of the troubadours most committed to the cause of Cuba's freedom. In 2021, he publicly rejected the use of his music in the regime's propaganda, and in 2023 he recorded with Amaury Gutiérrez “I will return to Cuba when the dictatorship falls”, with a music video filmed in Miami.
In April of this year, the artist also denounced opportunistic reggaeton artists who "want to jump on the bandwagon of Cuba's freedom at the last minute," in an interview where he reaffirmed his stance of continuous denunciation against the regime.
The Miami concert is part of Alejandro Sanz's tour "¿Y Ahora Qué?" in the United States, which runs until May 17 with dates in Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas, among other cities.
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