Hip-hop, Cuba and God with Keren Kmanwey [English]

By Spun Counterguy on December 24, 2022

Keren Kmanwey is a Cuban-born rapper who took some time to discuss her artistry and personal journey with us recently.

Do you remember when you first heard hip-hop and then when you decided to start writing your own lyrics?

I remember when I started writing my own rap lyrics, I was motivated by my friend Laura González. She has a special prominence in that area of my life because she helped me break the ice in that aspect and to feel safe in starting an artistic career. I was attracted to music since I was born; singing had been a passion. I had exposure to urban music, which I admired at that time, and I still do. I began to make music seriously when I moved to Havana at 18 years of age. It was an unforgettable adventure; I learned a lot in that process and it helped me to discover myself as an artist.

The track of yours that first caught my attention was “Las Plantatas”. Explain to folks outside the Cuban-American community what the song is about.

“Las Plantatas” is one of the last secular songs that I made. It was a song addressed to the Cuban community to call for justice to those women who are treated as political prey, they dying in the prisons of Cuba at the hands of the communist dictatorship. Many are currently suffering unfair sentences for solely political matters. For me being on the side of justice has always been something explicit in my career and “Las Plantatas” continues that theme. The original idea of the song is from Ana Olema. She is a person that I admire a lot and that has been important in several processes of my personal life, especially in my migration process from Mexico to the United States. We have seen ourselves involved in several projects together and she told me about this song and asked me to participate. Ana also brought in all the other girls and told us about the original letters of testimonies from different Cuban women. From there we developed the idea of the song, each of us focusing our parts on a particular testimony of a specific dissident. It was a long project; we were in this process about a year and although it was difficult to complete, we successfully achieved that I believe.

Where are you from originally?

I am originally from Camagüey [Cuba]. I grew up there and lived until I was 18 when I went to Havana to live.

Talk about your time in Havana. Highlights, learning experiences, friends you made, etc?

My time in Havana is where I learned to be independent and to value the effort that must be made to achieve anything in life. I met people and spent time in places that shaped me as an artist, but they affected me more as a person than as an artist. My life processes have been strong and difficult. Havana was the place where I officially faced the world for the first time, a concrete jungle where I met people of all kinds. I received ridicule and love, contempt and teachings, but above all I knew the true face of art and what it costs to get things done. It was the first time I started something from scratch. I experienced fear and loneliness, but all these things have earned me wisdom for my journey. There I went to find a life for myself and to get my plane ticket to leave that island. I felt imprisoned and art was what made me feel freer. Meeting artists and starting to record was what I wanted; there I met the entire Cuban hip hop guild of jazz and important figures of Cuban music and participated with them. So, in that sense my dreams came true because all the people that I wanted to meet involved with music I got to know and work with them even if it was just on one occasion. I was in the places that I wanted to enter and stepped on the ground that I wanted to step on. I really do not think that I have missed doing anything that I wanted in that moment there.

In your lyrics and on your online posts you don’t shy away from talking about your Christian faith. There are many musicians and artists that may thank God here and there but for you He seems to play center stage. Was there a moment in your life where faith went from maybe something that you heard about in church and from family to something forefront in your mind?

My faith in Christ is something that I cannot deny or hide. I will never be ashamed. It was a decision that I made and thought about it thoroughly before doing so because I know it is the most serious decision that a human being can take. A pact with God is not something that should be taken lightly. It means changing one’s life totally, leaving everything ancient and crucifying the old man, denying myself. The wishes that I have always had are mostly wishes contrary to God’s divine will. I had a Christian upbring. I had my doubts and believed in His existence in a very abstract way and this gave rise to what I walked away from during my youth. For this reason and some other circumstances, I abandoned my beliefs when I was 12 years old. Whenever anyone referred to me as a Christian, I denied it, because in reality I was away from God and His will, living according to my own desires, which is how most people do it. But nine months ago I met Jesus and He literally saved me from death via an overdose of drugs. Literally my soul returned to my body (after having left) and from that moment on I began having very strong spiritual experiences. Supernatural spirits made me recognize Christ as the only truth in the world and the only hope of salvation for humans. My destiny was to give him my life and I have done so, therefore now I preach his word and I am subject to doing what He sends me to do. From that moment I officially withdrew from secular music to serve God, and I am very happy with everything Christ is doing in my life. I am a new person.

It is often thought in our modern society that professing religion and politics is not polite or makes people uncomfortable. How would you respond to that?

I know perfectly that in the world we live it is not welcome to speak of God, nor preach the Word of God. People actually accept many religions, but Christian faith and biblical values are rejected by most people. It is the religion most persecuted throughout the world and is prohibited in more than 50 countries. Obviously, the moral standards of the Bible are very high and many do not want to be subjected to the will of God. For this reason most reject the Word of God. This totally supports the biblical quotation of John 3: 19-36 that says: “And this is condemnation: that light came into the world, and men loved more darkness than light, because their works were bad. Because anyone who does the bad, hates the light and does not want their sins to come to light, so that they are not reprimanded.”

Anyone who serves Christ today and dedicates his life to live as Jesus did it, is accused of being a fanatic. The human being in his disobedience invents gods who do not punish their iniquities and wants to believe in God in their own way. They plan to have a close relationship with Him while in sin when it really is not possible. The only way of really knowing Jesus is departing from sin and obeying.

Christian values are totally in contrast to the agendas that are governing the world today in terms of fashion, politics and society, gender agendas and racial supremacy. Leftist policies that are antichrist, agendas that approve abortion and the more worrying agenda that exists right now is the hyper-sexualization of childhood. Biblical prophecies are going to be fulfilled, I think. Christ is at the doors. Now, in regards to politics and Christianity I can only say that Christians must exercise our participation in politics by subjecting our opinion and vote to the provisions of God. We must participate, subjecting to Christ-centric values, always defending the biblical principle. Our intervention in any area of society must always be through prayer; that is the strongest tool that can change everything. We are called to peace, therefore my position is now not the same position that I had before knowing Christ. Before I knew Jesus I lived life in an earthly way and according to my own opinions. I am now fully subject to the will of God and I am on the side of divine justice and against any agenda that manifests itself contrary to the Christian Church and Christian moral values.

Another standout track to me that you make an appearance on is “DiazCaldosa”. Can you talk about what the song is about and how you became involved?

“DiazCaldosa” was a collaboration that I did with my friend Marichal. He invited me to participate in the album entitled The Resistance Volume 1. It has a political theme also. At that time that I wrote those lyrics I was going through other processes in my life and my way of pointing out things was not the same as I have now. I continue to be positioned against the dictatorship of Cuba, although my way of dealing with things now lies within the realm of spiritual warfare. Volume 2 of this series is about to come out and I believe that another song will be included in which I participated in that was recorded a year or so ago. Marichal has been very respectful of the new changes in my life and has been asking to present my previous work in the best possible way. I think that the things I recorded must be consistent with what was done at that time because the old projects that involve other people must respect the time and resources that were used at the time to be carried out.

As for the current time, my way of expressing myself has been transformed and my motivation now is to serve Jehovah. I still respect the old projects and they all remain available on my official social networks so that people can see the evidence of the transformation that Jesus can do upon reaching the life of a person. My change was not forced. No radical change that I have experienced has been painful. I know that many people may think that I am suffering to start living differently from what I used to say and do before. What I do know is contrary to the ancient Keren but nothing that is of God hurts. I have my internal battles and I have a constant struggle with my spirit and the flesh, but I have never been so happy. I no longer have that emptiness.

You’ve just released the EP Elohim and are working on a new album Metamorphosis. How will the subject matter on these releases relate and differ to past tracks?

ELOHIM and Metamorphosis are completely different from all the music I made before. Artistically they are more mature albums in concepts, lyrically and musically, even down to the designs. The voice is mine but it is different, and the content is Christian so all this music is spiritual and Christ-centric. The similarity with the other albums is that what I tell in my songs continue to be my personal experience. My songs are the best way to get to know myself as an individual and each one of them narrates a life story or a process in which I have found myself in every moment of my life. I am not a person who tells lies. I think it is one of my virtues that I have always been someone who is transparent. That’s why I think my word impacts where it goes because regardless of where in the process I am, as a human being I am very visceral, and I always expose myself with my songs. I talk about my feelings and my testimonies; I do not lie. For me, for example, in the past it was difficult to hide that I had a drug problem or depression with my family because they and anyone could notice this in my songs because of the sincerity of my lyrics and it’s something we never talk about directly. But everyone knew.

Also, my political positions, the things that annoy me, my way of falling intensely in love and suffering at the same time, are things that I reflect in my music. So basically I don’t have to pretend or hide. I am what I am and hypocrisy has never defined me. I have enough courage to face reality the way it comes. So, at the time I changed my life because I met Jesus and discovered His truth. That’s why I think that there is no such thing as Christian music and secular music, but rather I define that a committed and sincere artist narrates what he feels and what he lives. I am telling everyone what I live, what I feel, if my being is filled with the Holy Spirit then it is about Jesus that I am going to speak. All that past pain and confusion is gone. All the anger I had is gone. So that is reflected in my albums ELOHIM and Metamorphosis, and I also like as a Christian to preach with my music and praise God. I want people who feel like I felt before to find a solution for what they feel and I believe that my story can help them. I believe that if they listen to what Jesus did with me, their lives can also change and they can regain hope and faith as I did. These songs narrate real spiritual experiences and many are also based on biblical texts. Others are songs with social criticism and continue to criticize the system as I have always done, but this time from the Christian perspective and from the absolute truth of the word of God as moral and spiritual standard.