Hop-hop — in all its storied and complicated glory — has provided countless youth from many ignored corners of the world with the space to share their stories. And many of those stories belong to women.
Yet while today there seem to be more women in the rap game than ever before — in part, thanks to the commercial success of rappers Megan Thee Stallion, Cardi B and Nicki Minaj, among others — the industry and greater culture is one that is still recovering from a legacy of misogyny and male domination.
But one collaboration that sprouted from the musical hotbed that is Cuba is trying to change that.
The new hip-hop series #GuamparaCypher, a collaborative project of the first independent urban music label in Cuba Guámpara Music, made its debut on Nov. 3 and featured an ensemble of intergenerational women, all of who have contributed to the rich fabric of underground Cuban hip-hop.
“When talking about Cypher, the first image that comes to mind is tough men, demonstrating their skills as rappers, it has a lot to do with the ideal image of what a rapper is, which is an image that has been built for years in the media,” said Ained Cala, who is Guámpara Music’s label manager. Ained is also married to the label’s founder, Dj Jigüe, who founded Guámpara in 2015. For Cala, the decision to feature five rappers and a DJ, all of who are Cuban women, was an essential first step in the label’s goal of working with more women.
“For me, it’s revolutionary, at least from the Cuban context,” Ained said. “Not only because we are showing women rappers who are speaking from their perspectives, but also because in this first Cypher, through the protagonists, it connects the female trajectory within Cuba’s urban scene, taking into account that we conceived this so that different generations would converge.”
That convergence is on full display in this first Cypher, showcasing the pioneering Oakland-based DJ Leydis and rappers La Mariana, Lof Mu, La Real, Queen Diago and Briana Weapons.
When the visionary Dj Jigüe launched the label seven years ago, his goal wasn’t just to nurture a space for groundbreaking music but to make sure it reverberated far beyond the Caribbean island.
“We are also creating this space because it contributes to one of the goals of the label, which is to promote the urban scene and its protagonists, whether they are the best known or just emerging,” Dj Jigüe said. “And Guámpara Cypher serves this in a very peculiar way because the intention is to generate a series where rappers from different generations and different parts of the country are shown in each Cypher, which gives the project a sense of community because the artists are interacting and collaborating from different generations and places.”
A Hip-hop origin story
Leydisvel Freire, known to the hip-hop world as DJ Leydis, was molded by that old-school brand of hip-hop that rose out of the Havana neighborhood of El Vedado 19 y 10. She left her home in Camagüey in 1998 and moved to Havana to study popular Cuban dance. But soon it was the beats and rhymes from the local hip-hop group Grandes Ligas that captivated her.
“It caught my attention. In Cuba, you can’t say what you feel, like political things. These people said it in their music,” DJ Leydis said. “[Hip-hop] stole my heart. I feel like I discovered the person I really wanted to be and what I wanted to represent.”
Soon, Leydis wasn’t just a hip-hop fan. She became an activist, an organizer, and began collaborating and organizing events with various groups, including Grandes Ligas. She then co-founded Omegas Kilay, a hip-hop theater collective comprised of women. They did graffiti, choreographed dance, and performed spoken word, theater and hip-hop. It was then that they realized that they didn’t have a DJ.
DJ equipment was hard to come by in Cuba back then. And while some in Havana’s hip-hop scene had turntables, many were hesitant to lend them to women who were just learning the trade. So in the spirit of Cuban ingenuity, Leydis made do with two Discman CD players, swapping out discs whenever a new sound was needed. In the meantime, she befriended a fellow DJ who began to show her various techniques. And thus DJ Leydis was born.
But it was when she arrived in the Bay Area that she felt like she was DJing for the very first time. With the money she earned from her first gig — one she did with borrowed equipment — she bought the two turntables she had always dreamed about. DJ Leydis has been making her music mark in the Bay Area ever since.
So when DJ Jigüe and Ained contacted her about their Cypher idea, featuring women MCs from different generations, DJ Leydis jumped at the chance to collaborate. It’s her dream to open a bridge where there can be a cross-cultural musical exchange between Cuban and Bay Area women artists. Last year, she launched her own project, “La Voz Cuba Meets the Bay,” where she hopes to make that cultural exchange a reality.
“Guámpara music is like family to me,” DJ Leydis said. “After seeing these women recording the Cypher, I said ‘Oh my God. This has to go out into the world.’”
One of those women on the Cypher is La Real, a member of the rap group La Reina y La Real. She was just 19 when she innocently stepped into the world of hip-hop. She grew familiar with the sounds of American and international hip-hop, but it wasn’t until she was gifted a cassette that featured a track of rap in Spanish. Intrigued, she asked who the rappers were. They were Cuban.
“I was very surprised because I didn’t know that rap existed in Cuba,” La Real said. “And the person who lent me this cassette told me that they made that music themselves.”
Before long, she became embedded in the local hip-hop scene, writing songs and rapping with La Reina y La Real.
“For me, this Cypher was very important and it fills me with pride because I was able to partake with several generations of rap, such as Mariana and DJ Leydis, who were references for me at the beginning,” La Real said. “And also with this new generation of women who are doing it with tremendous strength and that is so important at this time when there are so few women representing Cuban rap.”
The Cypher, which is the first in a series of three, can be viewed on Nov. 3 on Guámpara Music’s YouTube channel and will be streaming on all digital platforms.