"Popular music in Cuba has always had the same intense power to represent cultural identity and language as, say, the punk movement had in England in the 70s, or gangster rap has for black urban youth beginning in the 80s."

"My interest was in doing the piece generated from a desire to “perform" Cuban society in ways it had not been represented either by people who were fanatically interested in supporting it or fana­tically interested in criticizing it."

"It is a very odd combination of events that precisely at the time when 'BuenaVista Social Club' hit as a popular moment internationally, there was this vital contemporary Cuban music in place called timba, which was also fighting for a place in the international market."

--En la calle, An Interview on TropiCola With Steve Fagin
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