HOT SALSA : Charanga Habanera splits

October 1998

Summer fears are now confirmed : Charanga Habanera, one of the most famous actual Cuban group split.

Often on international stages, multiplying records, bothered by the Cuban authorities for the attitude very suggestive of its members during the concerts and their provocative positions, Charanga Habanera was very active last years.

This major band of the new Cuban scene was succeeded to integrate rap and rock music, and to stand out like a mouthpiece of disabled Cuban youth with no real future. Charanga Habanera impressed international public by its spectacular concerts.

Not for musical reasons, but for business reasons, the group is today broken up. Sucess and dollars seem to be gone to the head of David Calzado - the leader -, who, in the last times, came to behave like a rock star.

And then... and then... the success pression and the accompanying contracts to honour implicating too busy schedules, damage the creativity of more than one group. Charanga Habanera had recently a regrettable tendency to plagiarize itself, as its recent boring concerts attest, or the mediocre last record Tremendo delirio.

David Calzado, leader and owner of the name, accompanied by Michel Marquéz (one of the singers), reform a new Charanga Habanera with a new staff.
The others, with Mario "Sombrilla"Jímenez (another singer), tempt a dissident new adventure with a new name : Charanga For Ever.

Future will say if this restructuration will be fatal to this group which, in its time, was like a bomb in the musical Cuban scene ; or if this new distribution is a new start, and will give a second breath to this formation that was a litlle tired.

Anyway, this separation opens the road and plays the game of Manolito, who with his Trabuco is now a serious rival, with his very good record Marcando la distancia, and with his tonic concerts full of energy, spectacle, musical quality and renewal.

SEE ALSO :
The page of CHARANGA HABANERA
CHARANGA HABANERA AFFAIR :
special edition
CHARANGA HABANERA in the album photo