Cuban street vendors sell their wares through song

Record ID: 1355982

  • Title: Cuban street vendors sell their wares through song
  • Date: 12th September 2018
  • Summary: GONZALEZ SINGING ON STREET GONZALEZ SINGING WITH THE NATIONAL CAPITOL BUILDING IN BACKGROUND VARIOUS, GONZALEZ CARRYING BAGS OF WHEAT AS HE SINGS
  • Embargoed: 26th September 2018 13:49
  • Keywords: Cuba Havana street vendors song singing minstrel communism
  • Location: HAVANA, CUBA
  • City: HAVANA, CUBA
  • Country: Cuba
  • Topics: Human Interest / Brights / Odd News,Society/Social Issues,Editors' Choice
  • Reuters ID: LVA00B8XBLOW3
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Cuba's street vendors are bringing back the pregon, the art of singing often humorous, rhyming ditties with double entendres about what they are selling, with some modernizing the traditional art by setting their tunes to reggaeton.
    The pregon is a centuries-old tradition that has inspired famous songs like "El Manisero" (the peanut vendor) composed in the late 1920s by Cuban musician Moises Simons on son music, the backbone of salsa.
    Yet it faded out in Cuba after Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution did away with most free enterprise. With the tentative liberalization of the centralized economy over the last few decades however, it has made a comeback.
    Cubans can now get a permit to make and sell their own goods on the street, from coconut ice-cream to juices, often opting for that rather than opening a shop which remains an onerous venture given ongoing restrictions on private business.
    Not all street vendors bother with the pregon these days. Some shout out what they are selling and their rates in a blunt manner on a loop, often using loudspeakers that they strap to their rickety carts or bicycles, adding to the urban cacophony.
    Cuba's pregoneros however, like Lyssett Perez who hawks paper cones of roasted peanuts to tourists in Old Havana, believe their ditties help them stand out.
    "Firstly, it's so people listen to me, secondly so they love me," said Perez. "For me the pregon means joy".
    Perez has opted for more traditional pregones and dresses up in colonial-style dresses with voluminous skirts and white aprons in order to further catch the eye of potential clients.
    "If you want to have fun by the mouth, buy yourself a peanut cornet," she sings in a deep, melodious voice as she meanders up and down Old Havana's pebbled and picturesque streets.
    Other pregoneros are updating the genre, like Gilberto Gonzalez who raps about his wares to the beat of reggeaton that blends reggae, Latin and electronic rhythms.
    "Toilet paper, so the chorus goes, buy me my people, to clean your bottom, hands in the air!" he raps in a video captured by a passer-by that went on to get tens of thousands of views on Youtube.
    The video appeared just months after shortages of toilet paper had occurred in Havana, adding to its humorous appeal; Cubans are notorious for dealing with constant shortages of basic goods by making fun of them.
    Such was its success that one of Cuba's top DJs, DJ Unic, did a remix that further spread Gonzalez's peculiar renown. Amused and wearing a cap that reads "Money on my Mind", Gonzalez said he was just trying to "make ends meet".
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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