The viral video of the so-called "Conga de Matanzas," whose chorus repeats "pincha que yo te cargo la jaba," sparked intense controversy in Cuba and among the diaspora in the early days of July 2026. In light of the scandal, Rolando Cartaya, journalist and researcher at the Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba and the Cuban Conflict Observatory, downplays the phenomenon: this violence in Cuba's popular congas is not new.
In an interview with journalist Tania Costa, both acknowledged that vulgarity is not news but rather a recurring event in Castro's Cuba. The host recalled that in the neighborhoods of Havana during the well-known 'Special Period' in the 1990s, the equivalent of "pincha que yo te cargo la jaba" was another equally crude phrase: "A la carga del machete," and when that was heard, it was time to run because there were stabbings everywhere.
His main argument is that the violence in neighborhood congas has always existed in Cuba, but there was no internet before to document and viralize it. “This violence is not new. What happens is that now there is internet and it can be seen, but this has always existed in the neighborhoods.”
Speaking of violence, he also recalled his time as a political prisoner, alongside common prisoners who had committed, in many cases, serious crimes. This made him a privileged observer of the vulgarity and violence in Cuban prisons. He also remembered how, despite being a journalist, he had to work as a pest control operator after his professional career was shut down for not being in line with the Castro dictatorship.
The journalist argued that the public reaction is out of proportion. "I believe we are exaggerating the problem. That it is vulgar, we do not dispute. That it is ugly, we do not dispute. That I would never want to see my child doing that either. But it has always existed, it has always existed."
The researcher places the conga within a framework of accumulated social degradation that explains the level of tension on the island. At this point, host Tania Costa emphasized that "If you sleep poorly and eat poorly, you are aggressive. Just imagine that every day of your life. The level of stress and irritability must be enormous."
Costa, for his part, has emphasized that many people have been outraged because it turns out that everyone now lived in Miramar and hasn't set foot in a neighborhood, "No one has ever danced a conga to the verses of Dulce María Loynaz. No, it has always been that (of the Matanzas conga) the style of the congas."
The program cited images of children sleeping in the street at Prado and Virtudes, in the heart of Old Havana, as evidence of the level of hardship that power outages impose on Cuban families.
In addition, Cartaya emphasized the skyrocketing insecurity and the collapse of the healthcare system. The former Radio Martí journalist highlighted the detention of two women in Holguín for the illegal sale of medications, and on social media, people came out to defend them with an argument that says it all: "The black market is Cuba's pharmacy; you can't rely on the state pharmacy, there's nothing there."
Defenders of the regime attempted to present the conga video as evidence that the Cuban people are happy. The comedian Ulises Toirac dismissed this interpretation on July 3 and described the video as evidence that Cuba is a "failed state" due to the systematic marginalization that the system has imposed on large sectors of the population.
The underlying context is equally revealing: the Cuban Observatory of Conflicts registered 107 street protests in June 2026, almost double the amount in March, mainly concentrated in Havana and Santiago de Cuba, driven by blackouts, shortages, and a social tension that, according to Cartaya, has been building silently in Cuba's working-class neighborhoods for decades.
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