Vedado State / Milton McDonald, Papá Humbertico

If at the confluence of G Park your entourage was the one with the handkerchiefs in the pocket and the cap on the side, the baggy pants, the walk and the intimidating rhymes, you know who I'm talking about. You also know what the Vedado state of mindThe melancholic feeling that took hold of the generations that lived through the "decentralization" of culture in the 90's and its repercussions throughout the 2000's. 

The influence of the Western cultural maelstrom and the space that urban genres gradually gained favored the emergence of artists with a particular, innovative and contesting vision. And in the capital city of the island, in El Vedado, such characters began to nestle during a fertile period of hopes and dreams, few of which we saw fulfilled, before the smokescreen dissipated.

In this context, many met Milton McDonald, who between 2009 and 2012 was just a young man eager for experience. Those two years of sacrifice did not bring him fame, but some visibility. A decade later, however, the rapper emerged as a "veteran" in the abrupt history of Cuban rap, and released an album where the testimonial is, I dare to judge, the golden nugget. Published in alliance with Papá Humbertico —producer of the phonogram and creator of the mythical Real 70—the album's soundtrack is the classic trip-hop with 4×4 tempo, crossed by the rap-fusion and some isolated presence of drill. The references of this work are obvious: Nach (Spain), Control Machete (Mexico) and Bárbaro el Urbano Vargas (Cuba).

The central thesis of Vedado State (Real 70 Producciones, 2022) is composed of the stories of that time, narrated through a prism of longing. Although the stories told are Milton's experiences, he presents them in a way that allows us to extrapolate them to our own memories.  

The sequence does not have a particularly inflexible track order, but if we are going to listen to it, it is necessary to start with the Intro. It is precisely on this subject that Milton conceptualizes his proposal and declares: "El Vedado is not just a neighborhood, it is a state of mind". Do you know that the first impression is the one that counts? Well, the first single of this album "sells you the bike", because of how well achieved it is (too bad it lasts so little). Piano, riffs of synthesizers, and trumpets in an amalgamation of trip-hop and Lo-fi, while Milton's voice emerges, clean, with a cadence that is perfectly in tune with the background.   

However, in the course of the disc, something happens: after the IntroWe are left with high expectations and we will not see them satisfied until the fourth track, I have already forgiven. There, for the first time, we notice a change that comes from the conjugation of three elements: the beatthe piano and the synthesizer. The detail is in the cohesion, in the way in which the gaps between the riffs. We have already heard the result, it is the background that tells you a street story. 

From there, if we are going to keep the highlights, we move immediately to the ninth track: No face, no casethe most charged theme of the album. If you think the lyrics say it all, it's because you haven't listened carefully to the melody. Papá Humbertico repeats the same formula but with more weight. The elements this time are coordinated to mark an intention of persecution, of siege, with an ostinato that, although at the beginning is very subtle, does not go unnoticed. 

I would also like to point out the similarity in composition between the second theme and the first one. Who's next and I turn one onwhich closes the album. The difference lies in the piano; I like to think it's a kind of strategy.  

Having said that, I notice that the sound base of the album is prominently flat. In that sense, it seems to me that, indeed, there was not much room for innovative fusions in a referential album, i.e., where the intention is to reproduce the backgrounds and beats of the 90's and early 2000's. Even so, both Milton McDonald and Papá Humbertico try certain experiments on the album while remaining conservative within the genre. The material summarizes the former's career and makes it clear that both still have good rhymes to contribute. They also manage to condense with their urban lyrics the feelings of many Cubans who share their spaces, adversities and dreams.