Sekou Yosmel Sarrias
www.facebook.com/sekoupresents

Co-founder of the rap duo Anónimo Consejo which ended in 2011 but occasionally still gets together.

From Azúcar negra: (Re)Envisioning Race, Representation and Resistance in the Afrofeminista Imaginary, PhD thesis, 6/13, Kiley Acosta:

"In Cuba, drums represent common, accessible resources for musical production. With skilled local musicians and a plethora of percussion instruments readily available, hip-hop artists weave secular and sacred Afro-Cuban rhythms into background music and interludes. Numerous rap songs also adhere to West African call-and-response structures. The track “Loma y machete” (Hill and Machete) (2007), by Havana rap duo Anónimo Consejo illustrates this fusion. “Loma y machete” begins with the haunting melody “No no no no no no no…” chanted over the duet between a deep, measured conga drum and a güiro 63 scratching out the tempo. Group members Sekou (Yosmel Sarrías Nápoles) and Kokino (Maigel Entenza Jaramillo) alternate reggae style singing and humming with tempered, unhurried rhyming. Their vocals seem to transport listeners back to the slave plantations of colonial Cuba. Lyrically, the raperos eulogize the plights and triumphs of Cuba’s cimarrones (maroon slaves) in the chorus “Loma y machete / no somos esclavos ya / Loma y machete / Ya no hay grilletes mas / (African dialect) / Palo Monte!” In these verses, the cimarrón rejects captivity by discarding his grilletes (shackles) and fleeing to the hills. He clears a path to freedom with his machete, and along this journey the cimarrón recuperates his native language and finds power in the religious practices of Palo Monte. 64 Icons of Afro-Cuban cultural resistance like the cimarrón, the machete and the grillete carry tremendous contemporary relevance for disempowered blacks as audiences throughout the African diaspora may find strength and community in resistance imagery and symbolic reductions of cultural heritage.

In addition to symbolic imagery, Cuban raperos also communicate Afro-centric agendas musically through specific rhythmic patterns of the sacred batá drum, an essential element of Regla de Ocha ritual worship. Known outside of Cuba as Santería, Regla de Ocha religious practices synchretize the Yoruba pantheon of Orishas 65 with Catholic saints and virgins. Regla de Ocha epitomizes one of the earliest manifestations of black resistance in Cuba, as captives from the region of West Africa currently known as Nigeria maintained Yoruba teachings during slavery and colonialism. In the face of forced conversion to Catholicism, elements of Yoruba folklore survived through the integration of Yoruba ritual and worship with Catholic practices (Orisha ayé 2).

The incorporation of Regla de Ocha drum patterns, called toques, in the introductions, interludes and closings of various Cuban rap songs --along with Yoruba chants and references to specific Orishas-- reflect strategic efforts to communicate defining qualities of Afro-Cuban identity and pride through sound. These musical subtleties habitually fly under the radar of listeners. They are almost-exclusively recognizable to cultural insiders familiar with the traditional songs and drumming of Regla de Ocha ritual worship. Anónimo Consejo honors the physical and spiritual resistance of their African ancestors by calling out “Eleggua suena cara el batá. / Aquí está África / Alive in my heart.” They salute Eleggua, a demi-god in Afro-Cuban epistemology 66 with steady batá toques and measured rhyme. The maintenance of these rituals and traditions keeps the rapper-narrators spiritually connected to their ancestral homeland. Blending Yoruba and Spanish raps overtop complex drum patterns; “Loma y machete” is representative of an enduring tendency of Cuban rap to maintain oral and musical Afro-Cuban ritual practices and pay homage to the shared African past of Cuba and other former slave societies."
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63 The Cuban güiro is a percussion instrument fashioned from a hollowed gourd. It is played by scratching a stick rhythmically down a series of notches carved into the body of the instrument to produce a ratchet-like sound. The Cuban güiro is commonly used in salsa and cumbia music. Variations of the instrument exist in the Dominican Republic (güira) and Brazil (reco-reco).

64 For information on the religious practices of Palo Monte in Cuba, see Natalia Bolívar Aróstegui and Valencia Porras Potts’ Orisha ayé: La espiritualidad del Caribe al Brasil (2011).

65 In the Yoruba religion, Orishas are akin to demi-gods.

66 In Regla de Ocha, the Orisha Eleggua is a mischievous spirit associated with children. He is believed to control multiple realms of communication and guard the crossroads of life. In ritual practice, practitioners must always pay homage to Eleggua first before commencing any ceremony or activity.