Since 2009 the Bay Area band Sentimiento y Manana has celebrated the music, culture, and spirit of La Isabel, a Guantanamo hamlet in the eastern Cuban stare of Matanzas. Led by Havana-born Juan Stable on guayo (metal scraper), the group includes guitarist Kai Lyons, Joe Churchill on marimba, Ramon Jay on maracas, and Ricky Aguilar on bongos (with everyone contributing on vocals). Dedicated to maintaining and sharing folkloric rhythms like el changüí, la rumba, son montuno and bembé, Sentimiento y Manana offers a potent, dancing-inducing reminder that long before the name Guantanamo took on forbidding significance the area was known as a hotbed of Cuban culture (a message carried around the world by “Guantanamera,” the international hit with lyrics by the great Cuban nationalist poet José Martí).

Sentimiento y Manana is a 2020 YBG Festival Commissions Artist.

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