The young Cuban singer-songwriter Miguel Ricote, 21 years old and originally from Banes, Holguín, has won over social media with his own rendition of "La Catalina," in which he transforms the popular song to tell a story marked by emigration, memories of Cuba, and the passage of time.
The performance has already accumulated 149,000 "likes" and more than 3,400 comments on Instagram, where Ricote posted the video after over 300 followers requested to imagine what the story would sound like if Catalina were Cuban.
"My little island has an abundance: tobacco, sugar cane, and coffee. It also has the cleanest streets you could ever see," says Catalina to the young man she meets along the way as she reminisces about the land of her childhood.
But he replies that the island she describes seems to not exist and shows her some photographs that she also does not recognize.
Then comes the final twist:
"Shut up, shut up Catalina, shut up, just shut up already, because you never recognized either your grandson or Cuba."
The story resonated particularly with Cubans who have lived for years outside the island and retain memories of a country very different from what the younger generations know.
The most popular reaction summarizes the impact that the outcome had among Ricote's followers: "It was about rewriting the song, not about breaking our hearts." The comment garnered over 11,000 likes.
Others responded with humor to describe the emotion. "Wait, I just got a tractor in my eye," wrote one user, while another confessed, "You made me cry even though I'm not Cuban, check that out."
The adaptation also resonated with people from other nationalities, some of whom related Catalina's story to experiences of emigration and separation faced by their own families.
"La Catalina" is a song performed by the Peruvian singer Rosario García-Montero and released in 2013. Its story comes from an ancient romance of Hispanic oral tradition. The original lyrics revolve around Catalina, a woman who waits for years for the return of her husband, a soldier who went off to war, until the passage of time leads to an unexpected reunion.
Miguel Ricote had already moved audiences with "Viva Cuba Libre."
This is not the first time that a song by the young artist from Holguín has found a massive audience on social media.
In March, Ricote drew attention with "Viva Cuba Libre", a song recorded during a blackout and by candlelight, in which he addressed scarcity, power outages, repression, and emigration.
Later, his interpretation of "Puente (Caribe)" by Ricardo Arjona once again captured the public's attention. He currently has over 100,000 followers on social media.
"La Catalina" has also become a space for several Cuban creators to share stories related to emigration.
The Cuban Kevin (@kevusho), based in New York, recently published another version about exile, in which Catalina has spent three decades outside of Cuba and discovers that the young man she is talking to is her own grandson.
Ricote, who did it before, gives the story a different ending: Catalina is unable to recognize the grandson who grew up far away, nor the Cuba she left behind.
Filed under: