Latino VoicesPitbullcubaLatino Voices

Pitbull Weighs In On Jay-Z Beyonce Trip To Cuba In New Song

Mr. 305's Rap-Response To Jay-Z's 'Open Letter'
Open Image Modal
By 

National Reporter, HuffPost

Open Image Modal

Cuban-American reggaeton star Pitbull added his voice on Sunday to an increasingly crowded debate over the ethics of travel to Cuba, with a rap-response to Jay-Z’s “Open Letter.”

If you’re expecting an attack on Jay-Z, though, you won’t find it here. It’s more of an anthem to Cuban-American pride, recapping the history of Cubans in the United States and touching on every major event in U.S.-Cuba relations from the Bay of Pigs to Mariel to the Elián fiasco.

Politics, yeah that’s politics
Let’s not act like half our families ain’t split…
I ain’t here to hold a grudge
I love the freedom that’s been given to us…
C-U-B-A, hope to see you free one day.

At one point, the song calls out Jay-Z and Beyoncé’s critics, saying: “Question of the night -- would they have messed with Mr. Carter if he was white?”

Jay-Z’s given name is Shawn Corey Carter, but the lyric also possibly alludes to ex-President Jimmy Carter, who traveled to the island in 2011 and 2002 to meet with Cuban officials. Carter is the only U.S. President to undo travel restrictions to Cuba since they were first imposed by John F. Kennedy. Reagan reinstated them and they’ve remained in place since then.

Cuban-American politicians blasted the musical power couple this month for spending their fifth anniversary on the Communist island, pointing out that U.S. bars most Americans from visiting Cuba just for tourism.

But the Treasury Department said last week that it had, in fact, approved Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s trip to Cuba as a cultural exchange.

Jay-Z responded angrily with a song entitled “Open Letter,” in which he says “They wanna give me jail time and a fine -- Fine, let me commit a real crime.”

The news that Treasury approved the trip to Cuba didn’t stop Cuban-American Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fl.) from continuing his criticism of Jay-Z, calling him out for wearing Che Guevara t-shirts.

"First of all, I think Jay-Z needs to get informed," Rubio said Sunday on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos," according to Yahoo! News. "One of his heroes is Che Guevara. Che Guevara was a racist. Che Guevara was a racist that wrote extensively about the superiority of white Europeans over people of African descent, so he should inform himself on the guy that he’s propping up."

Would the celebrity couple have gotten criticized for visiting these five countries over concerns about their human rights violations? Probably not. Check them out in the slideshow above and let us know what you think in the comments.

Before You Go

Beyoncé And Jay-Z Could've Gone Here...
Mexico(01 of05)
Open Image Modal
Almost 70,000 people have died since ex-President Felipe Calderón launched his country's frontal assault against the drug cartels in 2006. The Mexican military has admitted to raping its own citizens. Human Rights Watch has tied the Mexican military to extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances and torture. Why don't more people bring this up when tourists visit Cancún? (credit:A Mexican Navy member stands guard in a highway in the state of Mexico, near the capital Toluca, on January 29, 2013. According to local authorities, 3,000 elements of the Navy, Army, Federal Police and State Police were deployed since last January 24 for)
China(02 of05)
Open Image Modal
Not unlike Cuba, China is a Communist country that stifles dissent, imprisons journalists and otherwise tramples on basic civil liberties. The Chinese government also uses secret arrests and torture to maintain control over Tibet, according to Human Rights Watch.So how come celebrity visits to Shanghai don't raise the same stink as those to Havana? (credit:Tibetan exiles shout slogans against the Chinese government at a protest in New Delhi, India, Thursday, March 14, 2013. The demonstration was held to mark the fifth year of protests led by Buddhist monks in Tibet that turned violent, leading to an extensi)
Colombia(03 of05)
Open Image Modal
Plagued by a half-century of civil conflict, the Colombian tourism agency adopted a slogan to entice foreign visitors: "The only risk is wanting to stay." For many Colombians, however, the there's lots of other risks: that you'll end up as one of the country's 3.8 million displaced people, that government soldiers will murder you and dress you up as a rebel to inflate combat statistics, or that government agents will threaten to kill your family because they don't care for the way you report the news. Some 37 members of Congress and five governors have been convicted of having ties to paramilitary groups and another 139 face investigations, making it difficult to draw a clear distinction between organized crime and state violence. Do these issues keep celebrities up at night in the posh hotels of Cartagena? (credit:Picture of fake tombs placed in front of the Congress building during a protest against the false positives, massacres and forced disappearences by Colombian authorities on March 6, 2009, in Bogota. AFP PHOTO/Mauricio DUE-AS)
Israel(04 of05)
Open Image Modal
The Israeli government's long list of human rights abuses against Palestinians includes torture, the use of lethal force to stifle protest, imprisonment of conscientious objectors, forced evictions and home demolitions, and a blockade of 1.6 million people in the Gaza Strip, according to Amnesty International. The Palestinian Authority has also come under fire for abuses, including arbitrary detention and torture, while human rights organizations have criticized Hamas' armed wing for torturing detainees and for extrajudicial killings. The last round of armed conflict between the Israeli government and Hamas left 103 Palestinian civilians and 4 Israeli civilians dead, according to Human Rights Watch. Would Beyoncé and Jay-Z have taken flak for visiting this hotbed of human rights issues? (credit:Israeli border police evacuate demonstrators who were attempting to close the main road linking Jerusalem and Hebron while calling for the release from an Israeli jail of Palestinian prisoner Samer Isawi, on April 8, 2013, near the West Bank city of Hebr)
The United States(05 of05)
Open Image Modal
It bears mentioning that Beyoncé and Jay-Z's home country routinely commits human rights abuses that rarely get mentioned in connection with the U.S. tourist industry. The U.S. military has tortured suspected terrorists and imprisoned them without putting them on trial. Some 166 detainees remain in the U.S. military prison, according to the New York Times. To put the figure in perspective, it's higher than the 90 Cuban political prisoners languishing in jail, according to a January estimate by the Cuban Commission for Human Rights Commission.The U.S. government also bears the brunt of the responsibility for the deaths of some 151,000 Iraqis, routinely kills civilians in drone strikes in foreign countries and imprisons more people than any country in the world. Why would anyone want to allow their hard-earned tourist dollars wind up supporting a government like that? (credit:A protestor wears an orange prison jump suit and black hood on their head during protests against holding detainees at the military prison in Guantanamo Bay during a demonstration in front of the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC, on January 8, 2013. Thi)
Suggest a correction
|
Submit a tip