The Cuban pianist and composer Omar Sosa issued a powerful call for unity, using the saying from Afro-Cuban tradition: "One stick does not make a thicket." He made this statement in an interview with Tania Costa, around May 20, 2026, a date laden with symbolism for the Cuban exile community and those who anticipate a political transition on the island.
Sosa, born in Camagüey in 1965 and a resident outside of Cuba since 1993, was straightforward and candid: "Sisters, if we don't unite, nothing will happen. It's not about talking; it's about saying this is the path, let's walk this path, in this direction, each from our own trench, each from our own barricade."
The musician acknowledged that he does not usually speak on these issues, but that everyday reality compels him to do so: “I don’t usually talk about this topic, but every day, for example at home, there are peers who ask me: ‘What’s going to happen tomorrow?’”
What makes his message especially meaningful is that Sosa does not direct it solely at others. "When I speak, I'm not just telling you something; I'm telling it to myself," he admitted, in a gesture of humility that adds moral weight to his words.
To describe the shared anguish of the Cuban diaspora, the musician resorted to a poetic image: "There is a part of the heart that constantly weeps and another that knows how to clear that tear. One hand goes to the other and the other goes to the next."
Sosa's call for unity comes in a context of renewed expectations for political change in Cuba, driven by initiatives from the organized exile in Miami —such as the so-called "Liberation Agreement," which includes proposals for the release of political prisoners, stabilization, and free elections— and by increasing pressure from U.S. officials on the Cuban regime.
The situation of imprisoned artists like Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, leader of the San Isidro Movement who was sentenced to five years in prison in June 2022 and whose sentence ends on July 9, 2026, also draws attention from the artistic community and human rights advocates.
Sosa, who defines himself as a "citizen of the world at this moment in my life, 61 years old," anchors his message in the Yoruba and Afrocuban tradition that has guided his life as an emigrant for over four decades. His father was a palero — a practitioner of the Congolese Afrocuban religion Palo Monte — and that spiritual heritage is the foundation from which he interprets the need for unity.
"My tradition is what has emotionally supported me in a reality where I have felt and continue to feel like an immigrant wherever I go," explained the musician, nominated seven times for the Grammy and Latin Grammy for his Latin jazz albums.
"Being religious from the perspective of believing in the ancestral world, of believing in the age of our spirits and our ancestors who guide your path, is what has allowed me, with dignity, to arrive in the same way in Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Madrid and say: this is Cuba too," concluded Sosa, encapsulating in a single phrase the identity he carries with him wherever he acts in the world.
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