Kamankola's record (re) appearance in 2014 had a certain impact on the public of the Cuban alternative scene. They did not stop talking about Antes que lo proh\u00edban (2014), promoted as the first Cuban phonogram financed by micro patronage through the crowfounding platform Verkami. Kamankola, who had made his debut in 2008 with the album Musas Desechables, quickly gained a loyal audience that packed the spaces where he performed and seemed to know even the songs that the artist had not yet composed. They were also mostly teenagers, which has some merit if we take into account that the artist is usually pigeonholed into trova, a genre whose popularity among young people has declined considerably. Six years and three albums after that return, Kamankola brings us Desde dentro (2020), his cleanest album to date.<\/p>\n
Starting from the outside, the cover of the phonogram shows Kamankola's face made up of a compilation of all the Cuban clich\u00e9s that exist. Come on, it could function as a moodboard for a tourist souvenir artisan: there are a selection of iconic buildings in the capital; tobacco and rum; the almendr\u00f3n and the camel; the Soyuz 38 and truck cameras; sunflowers and royal palm; the CUP and the CUC; Christ and the Charity of Copper; the plane and the hummingbird; the baseball bat and supply book; the Van Van, the Rolling Stones and La Bayamesa\u2026 Maybe it will work, I wouldn't deny it: it is a nice, attractive and well composed collage that can connect the same with the chauvinism of the Cuban as with the simplifying curiosity of the standard yuma. The image seems to tell us that Kamankola carries all the Cuba inside, . But, does anyone doubt it at this point in the game? The musician has been telling us for four albums and, in that sense, this cover fits more with the content of his previous albums. Because in this Cuban thing hardly appears and never explicitly.<\/p>\n