Latin Music Wave Rolls Over Miami

Controversy over the presence of Cuban musicians may have dominated local headlines, but it was ultimately subsumed in the international swirl and business buzz of the second annual MIDEM Latin America and Caribbean music conference, which this week transformed South Miami Beach into a vibrating hemispheric village.

Tuesday night, immigration delays prevented Cuban groups Irakere and Charanga Rubalcaba from joining 90-year-old Cuban singer and Buena Vista Social Club star Compay Segundo in a long anticipated Cuban showcase, which was somewhat marred by a demonstration outside and a bomb scare inside that briefly halted the performance. But the furor receded later that night into the greater cacophony of styles and scenes.

At the Cameo Theater, salsa star Ruben Blades headlined a showcase of Panamanian bands ranging from ska-punk to folk-pop. Around the corner at the Warsaw Ballroom was Los Amigos Invisibles, a Venezuelan psychedelic funk rap band whose anarchically sexual songs highlighted a showcase of bands on David Byrne’s Luaka Bop label.

Across the street, Andrea Echeverri and Hector Buitrago, of the Grammy-nominated Colombian rock band Los Aterciopelados, sat on a curb in front of another club doing a TV interview, while Miami rock band Volumen Cero, which is scheduled to open for Aterciopelados’ upcoming U.S. tour, played inside.

“To be here is to catch the future wave of international music that everyone’s riding,” said Luis Tamblay, Cero’s singer.

That sentiment would seem borne out by statistics released this week by the Recording Industry Assn. of America, the trade group that represents U.S. record companies. During the first two quarters of 1998, sales of Latin music--defined as product that is 51% or more Spanish-language--grew at twice the rate of the overall industry. While Latin music represents only a 4.5% share of the $5.8-billion U.S. music industry, the latest figures reflect a multi-year trend of strong growth.

With that as a backdrop, Tamblay’s assessment of MIDEM was no surprise: “Anyone who is anybody is here, and so is everybody that’s nobody.”

And everyone was here, from multimillion-selling Brazilian pop stars So Pra Contrariar to Latin house producer Jellybean Benitez. The Miami MIDEM is still a smaller cousin to the original 33-year-old MIDEM Cannes, produced by France’s Reed Midem Organization, which with 11,000 delegates from 85 countries is the world’s largest and most important music trade show. But the Miami show could already be called the Cannes of the Latin music world.

Last year it attracted more than 3,300 delegates and press, representing 1,370 companies from 65 countries; numbers were down slightly this year, but organizers are optimistic that the event will catch up with Europe soon.

“The market in Europe is nearly saturated,” said MIDEM President Xavier Roy in an interview this spring. “MIDEM Americas really has the potential to become the size of MIDEM Cannes in five years.”

This version of MIDEM is riding the international boom in Latin American and Caribbean music. For Miami Beach officials, it is the final imprimatur in their plan to make tiny, trendy South Beach--already home to major Latin record labels, MTV Latin America and producers including Emilio and Gloria Estefan--the international capital of Latin music.

“It’s a total buzz,” exulted Dennis Leyva, Miami Beach’s entertainment liaison. The fact that Dade County government officials at the last minute canceled the opening night party at a lavish county-owned mansion because of MIDEM’s presentation of Cuban musicians served to underscore the difference between international South Beach and the politically conservative mainland. The cancellation--after a heated months-long debate, and the return of MIDEM and its more than $17 million worth of business hinging on the Cubans’ inclusion--was widely perceived as a blatant insult, and when Miami Beach stepped in with a lavishly produced sunset party on the beach the dominant sentiment was, “Who needs the mainland?”

The Next Big Thing: Latin Grammys

Inside the exhibition hall at the Miami Beach Convention Center was all the self-absorbed blur of activity of a musical world still largely foreign to the mainstream U.S., but which encompasses a big chunk of the globe. One stand featured a video by a Dominican merengue/house band--equal parts rural roots and urban gyrations--called Fulanito; another the Spanish soundtrack for “Mulan”; reggae, electronic, salsa, tejano, rock and less identifiable musics blared while men in dreadlocks and African-robes or suits and large mustaches sat at small tables talking business. A Brazilian woman in a green Middle Eastern costume singing 15th century Spanish Sephardic songs attracted a crowd.

For Oscar Poche, of New York City-based Allen Street Records, which specializes in Latin dance blends like merengue-house, this was the place to be. “Latin dance will be as big as hip-hop in a few years,” Poche said. “I’ve set up licensing deals with Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador and Japan, and I’ve got a lot of interest in Latin reggae from Brazil and Peru.”

A major boost to the Latin music world was being planned behind the scenes, at a meeting called by Michael Greene, president of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, the organization that presents the Grammy Awards. NARAS has established a separate Miami Beach-based Latin Academy, which will produce its own award ceremony, anticipated as something that will promote the music’s legitimacy both artistically and commercially--their own musical stamp of honor.

Standing at the head of a long table lined by major label executives and other Latin music VIPs, Greene outlined plans for the first international television broadcast of the Latin Grammys in 2001, with shows to be staged in a different country each year. “I bring two things--money and a good historical frame of reference to help make Latin music grow,” Greene announced. “We want to get the world excited about this years in advance.”

This took place out of view of the cameras; much of the international and local media’s focus was on the Cuban presence and the accompanying controversy, with cameras and reporters circling the approximately 400 protesters beating conga drums and carrying signs reading “Cultural Exchange Offends” outside the convention center on Tuesday night. But there were far more people inside drinking and schmoozing amid balloons and blaring sound systems.

“It’s ridiculous,” said Lydia Rene Corail, of Guadeloupe, as she watched the protest through glass doors. “They are not in the stream of things--to make Castro fall you have to invade commercially,” said her companion, Philippe Bon.

Excitement That’s Artistic and Political

But the commercial invasion is already on, albeit in reverse; stands prominently displaying videos and photos of Cuban artists dominated the exhibition hall’s center aisle. At the booth for Manzana, a distribution company from the Canary Islands, Cristina Mantecon said 30% of its European business is Cuban music; she had just hosted a press conference with Cuban artists Gema y Pavel, and approvingly pointed out a Cuban lawyer who she said “really thinks with a capitalist mentality.”

When Chucho Valdes and Irakere did finally play their inextricably tight, rhythmic powerhouse jazz and Afro-Cuban blend of music on Wednesday night, the excitement was both musical and political. “I win,” exulted MIDEM head Xavier Roy, after his yearlong struggle to present the Cuban musicians.

Backstage, Valdes and the other musicians were engulfed by photographers and ardent reporters. Playing in Miami made Valdes “feel wonderful,” he said. “Cuban music is just one thing. There’s not a Cuban music they play in Cuba and another they play in Miami. It’s the same music, and we are the same Cubans.”

That seemed evident throughout the evening, as exile saxophonist Paquito d’Rivera embraced Cuban protest singer Carlos Varela at an after-party for D’Rivera’s jazz and flamenco concert. Still, as the music boomed up and down South Beach, from Colombian rockers at the Cameo to Cuban songwriters gossiping in an alley around Nicaraguan salsa star Luis Enrique’s car, it was also evident that Cuban music was just one more stream in a flooding musical river.