“Sin Permiso”
Los Aldeanos & Intifada
Musical composition by Yallzee
Engineered by Papá Humbertico & Emetrece
Directed & Produced by M.Rivière

Los Aldeanos, made up of the dua El Aldeano and El B, are one of the leading rap groups in Cuba today. They are also one of the more controversial ones. Representing a voice of the people and recognized for their critical lyrics,Los Aldeanos are esteemed by many Cubans for 'telling it like it is.' Despite Los Aldeanos’ lyrics against the bureaucracies and corruption they experience, they are authentically revolutionary. Their critiques in essence attempt to, as The New York Times posted, revolutionize the revolution, and as CNN asserted, give voice to the Cuban people. Unfortunately many groups have manipulated the content of their music towards their own political interests. This phenomenon has resulted in various controversies, their talent combined with their lyrical content and their global isolation on the island, has developed a complex problem of representation and personification. Their recent exposure on Univision, the NY Times and CNN International peaked an immediate curiosity for the group from outside of Cuba, and Los Aldeanos began receiving more international attention than many Cuban Agency for Rap sponsored artists. Adding to the hype, El Bian who has won the Red Bull freestyle battle of the year two years in a row in 2007 & 2008 - has not been permited by Cuban emigration to leave the island to represent as national champion at the international battle – putting them simpultaniously on international hip-hop and political radars.

Los Aldeanos is a Cuban hip-hop duo that got their start in 2003. As friends they would spend days and nights non-stop writing together – but with little opportunity to record. They paired up with emcee, songwriter and producer Papa Humbertico who runs Real 70 Studios out of his home. Slowly they started getting their songs recorded and their message heard. Today, Los Aldeanos do not belong to the Cuban Agency for Rap, nor are they interested in froming part of the agency, one of their missions is to prove that an artists can achieve independent success in socialist Cuba.

Just as the second track on the Ph.D., "Guasabara" was beginning to get attention in Havana, I began to talk with El Aldeano about doing a third collaborative song that would include them. Many Cuban rappers would have been delighted to be selected for this project, and according to many fans and colleagues, including Los Aldeanos in the project was insinuated as a ‘risky’ choice. First off they are not integral to the Cuban Agency for Rap, which in Cuba it is assumed that such a high profile international collaboration 'should' be limited to Agency artists, second, their highly charged critical lyrics guaranteed polarized responses.

We discussed the possibility of the collaboration for about six months and I facilitated a series of conference calls between Luis Diaz of Intifada and El Aldeano to decide on the theme. Luis gave me Yallzee’s beat in Puerto Rico in April of 2007. I made two previous attempts to send the beat with trustworthy friends - however once thebeat arrived into Cuban hands, it seemed to get 'conveniently' lost. The beat that finally arrived in Los Aldeanos' hands was sent via a professor at the University of Madrid who sent the package to Cuba - this time, the CD read: Lo Nuevo de Pupi y Los Que Son Son. El Aldeano received the beat and both him and El B wrote their portion of the lyrics, and waited for me to get to Havana to record. In July of 2007 I arrived in Havana and we coincided the recording of the track with my participation in the 3rd Simposio de Hip-Hop Cubano.

I wanted to keep as much of the raw underground sound Los Aldeanos have in their music consistent for this track. Since they usually record at Real 70 studios, it only seemed appropriate to get Papa Humbertico involved. Humbertico has been a significant part of the hip-hop movement of Havana for years, to work with him on this track was an added bonus. Up until this adventure recording at Real 70, I had only heard about how “far” Papa Humbertico’s house is with respect to inner city Havana. Little did I know…

On the day we set out to record at Papa Humbertico’s I met up with El Aldeano on Infanta & Carlos III. We caught a car to Old Havana where we met up with El B. The summer was hot and every bus that could take us out to Humbertico’s home was packed beyond capacity of beach goers to the Playas del Este. We jumped in an olds-school 'maquina' that functons as a chartered taxi - and where we were dropped off on the side of the route - the infamos walk began. El Aldeano and El B took turns carring the back pack with recording equipment and the video camera. Not a single car passed by on the walk up, just a few passed down. We must have started the walk around 10am, and we walked, and walked....By the time we were half way there the three of us had drank all the water we brought along and the mid morning August sun incesantly beat down on us, just when the thought actually crossed my mind, ‘if we don’t get there soon…’ in a faint mind state. El Aldeano gasped out – 'we’re here.’ Up to my right was casa #70 de la calle Real en Guanabacoa, also known as Real 70 Studios.

It took a little while to get into the studio booth, or, should I say, build up the studio booth. Humbertico works on a PC, with a very simple hand held vocal mic. If one always thinks of producers as engineers and so many here in the US aren’t even close to being a novice, well Humbertico is an wizard. With the basic equipment he uses and creative efforts to get some quality sound, the man makes magic. We used Humbertico's regular set up to record Los Aldeanos for this track. Once complete - we bounced all the vocal files and saved the project in three formats to make sure we would have compatibility due to software and hardware differences - again not only a Cuba/US collaboration, but a PC/Macintosh one as well.

Immediately back in the Emetrece Productions Studio in Minneapolis I began compressing vocals and cutting up the track to make a new mix based on the previous reference, yet incorporating various highlights and moving around audio takes that were recorded as filler. Drops from the end of the song were moved to the front, the middle highlights were moved to the chorus, etc. At this phase the song took on the title ‘Despierta America.’ It wasn’t until just before recording with Luis that I spliced the ending which said ‘Asi se penso, y asi se hizo, la verdad no se dice con permiso’ (English: as it was thought it was done, the truth is told without permission) and threw it to the front as the intro of the song. Immediately without having to think twice about it I gave it the title ‘Sin Permiso.’ The lyrics of the chorus stating ‘From our streets to the ntire galaxy’ sparked the idea of making it sound like the song itself was being tuned in from an intergalactic radio. In essence, method was to allow for the song to rpoduce itself based onthe data, rather than enter the production mode with a concept that was to be fulfilled.

I sent Intifada the reference and Luis began writing. It took a series of trips to record Luis. The first recording was ‘nice’ but Luis was uncomfortable with his flow style. In Puerto Rico I set up my laptop, protools m-box and a microphone in the headquarter apartments of Emetrece Productions/Puerto Rico. Its a very underground set up – but it works, and in comparison to the set ups in Havana, it is state of the art….. I recorded three different sessions with Luis. yielding seven version of the song - using different parts of his vocals on the final version until we were both content.

I produced the final mix for ‘Sin Permiso’ back in Minneapolis at the Emetrece Productions studio. The song makes up the third track of the Ph.D. thesis “Son Dos Alas: The Diffusion of Hip-Hop in Cuba and Puerto Rico.” All the tracks from this dissertation have experienced some sort of publication alongside their creation for this dissertation. "Sin Permiso" appears in Los Aldeanos latest album: El Atropello (2009). The music video for “Sin Permiso” marks the first Cuban/Puerto Rican hip-hop collaboration to release a music video filmed on-site in each location.

Aldo recording "Sin Permiso" @ Real 70 Studios

Papa Humbertico in Real 70 Studios

El Bian & Humbertico exporting audio files for "Sin Permiso"

Luis Diaz' lyrics for "Sin Permiso"

Luis writing

Luis and Meli recording