Post: #1

Wonder what the Miami mafia thinks?

Post: #2

My little brother is in Cuba traveling right now, got a picture of him and beyonce, told him to be a true alpha he should try to wheel her

Post: #3

I doubt they care. Jay-Z is on a packaged tour as it appears. Hes going from one gringo filled place to the next in Havana. I ate the restaurant they ate at before La Guajarita or La Guajara I can't remember the name. Surprisingly, it was both the worst meal I had in all my trips to Cuba and the most expensive.

For a minute, I was thinking maybe Jay-Z is going to recruit some musicians as there are some musicians there with massive fan bases inside the island but virtually no audience outside of it. But then I read the places where they were going and realized it's just a boring packaged tour. I'm surprised they say he's staying in Hotel Saratoga. From what I recall thats in Central / Old Havana. While certainly a nice hotel thats right where there are massive crowds of people and near lots of poverty. I would've expected him to stay in Miramar/ Siboney where he can wander somewhat freely without hundreds of people recognizing them.

It's a bit of an odd 5th anniversary place to go. But it seems like quite a few celebs go that just aren't noticed. I saw pictures of Will Smith and his wife out clubbing in Havana a couple years ago.

Post: #4

(04-05-2013 01:19 PM)lavidaloca Wrote:  I doubt they care.

This was probably not their intent, but it would be great for this thing to blow up and highlight the issue of Americans not being able to travel here freely.

http://omg.yahoo.com/blogs/celeb-news/be...53842.html

Beyoncé and Jay-Z looked crazy in love celebrating their fifth anniversary in Cuba last week, but not everyone is smitten over their decision to travel to the embargoed country.

Two Republican members of Congress have asked the U.S. Treasury Department for an investigation into whether the musical power couple – and parents to 1-year-old daughter Blue Ivy – had the required government permission to travel to the communist country.

In a letter written by U.S. Representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Mario Diaz-Balart – who represent districts in South Florida, where there's a high Cuban-American population – they asked Office of Foreign Assets Control director Adam Szubin for information about the license the couple received, the purpose of their travel, and who approved the trip.

"Despite the clear prohibition against tourism in Cuba, numerous press reports described the couple's trip as tourism, and the Castro regime touted it as such in its propaganda," the letter stated.
It's true that the couple – who have long been President Obama supporters, so it has not gone unnoticed that they are being singled out by Republicans – looked like tourists as they strolled the streets of Old Havana on April 4, which was their anniversary.

In addition to visiting historical landmarks – while Beyonce snapped photos with her camera, perhaps for Tumblr – they reportedly visited a dance troupe, dined out at a high-level restaurant, and did some dancing of their own.

The couple now faces inquiries from Congress into their trip. Penalties for violating the ban can include fines of up to $250,000 (a drop in the bucket for Forbes' Highest-Paid Celebrity Couple, who earned an estimated $78 million last year), but also prison time. However, thousands of Americans travel to Cuba each year – usually by way of other countries — and few are prosecuted.

Reps for Jay-Z and Beyoncé have not yet responded to omg!'s request for comment, and Beyonce, who is gearing up for a world tour, has already seems moved on to other things. On Sunday, she released a video for Chime for Change, which is Gucci's campaign to promote women's empowerment, in which she talked about the most influential woman in her life: her mom.

Post: #5

Famous people and other artists travel there all the time, but without all this noise and criticism. They go under the guise of "art," and no one says shit. This is grandstanding on a supreme level by Miami area politicians. Did the Miami Cuban community and their reps demand this of Ry Cooder when he went down there many years ago to record the Buena Vista Social Club album, and the other associated albums recorded by Cuban artists? NO. Other celebs get permission to go and they're only there to do the tourist thing also.

Post: #6

The embargo apparently does more damage to the cuban people than the regime

But florida is a key swing state. And Cubans there are a powerful lobby so aint nothing gonna change.

Republicans are just angry at everything...

Post: #7

Castro was a dictator, as was Batista. Communism is stupid. And most of the Cuban people will be much better off once that whole stupid experiment is over.

That being said, the embargo is bullshit. From what I know it's being kept alive by a small group of Cuban-Americans who think they're going to get confiscated property back one day. It is complete bullshit that the American governor prohibits me from going to Cuba and spending my own resources how I wish and from conducting commerce with whom I wish. How is that any better than what the Cubam regime does?

Post: #8

Once the embargo lifts, I'm gonna try to make a trip that way. Money is gonna be flowing like crazy once we get past the whole dead people who pointed nukes at each other thing.

Post: #9

The embargo serves no real purpose in this day and age, and the world happens to think so as well. The United Nations General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly in recent years to lift the embargo, but only two nations have voted against this resolution. The nations? The US and Israel of course. Its probably safe to say that democracy won't arrive in Cuban under to volition of the US, which is a shame for Cubans since foreign businesses are probably queued wanting to invest in the opportunities there.

Post: #10

To be honest I don't foresee the embargo being lifted. Raul has stated his interest in continuing socialism and opening the doors to Americans would make it very difficult to continue on that plan. He's already chosen his successor on this basis and from I what recall his successor is fairly young (in his 50's).

One of the senators or whatever who is all up in heels over the visit has NEVER even visited Cuba despite being Cuban. This is frequently seen in the politics scene where people who are Cuban and have never been there talk about it as though they know all about it. They are basically the DASH GLOBALS of Rooshv if you ask me.

Yoani Sanchez a popular dissident blogger from Havana even suggested that the Cuban Government planned the marriage of Jay-z and Beyonce for the intention of having them in Cuba for their 5th anniversary. This is the typical trash that is made up by people against the government which is so prevalent in the news.

I was wrong as to the restaurant they ate at, I ate at a different one... El Guajarito was where the shitty food is.

Plenty of Cubans are happy. Very few people go without food. I can walk provincial cities and see next to no homeless people. Health Care is free as well as dental care regardless of the cost of the operation. Food is provided in rations that gives the average Cuban food for 1-2 weeks a month. Transportation is incredibly cheap. I as a tourist can go to a beach city 40km away for 1 dollar and 20 cents. A Cuban can make it their for a fraction of that and this is by CAR. Although you have to know how to find these as 99% of tourists use taxi's which make you pay foreign like prices.

I could name dozens of positives that Cubans have going for them. As well as negatives. The country is not a bad place. It isn't an unhappy place or super gloomy as its made out to be. Walk the streets and go to any central park and you will see dozens of happy people playing dominoes, chess, drinking a bottle of rum, dancing to a "FREE concert."

Education is free. You want to be a neuro surgeon, don't worry you won't go 4 zillion dollars in debt.

Food is unbelievably cheap. I buy 90 eggs for about 3.50 cents. 3kg of steak for 5 dollars.

But then all you hear about is 20 dollar salaries in the news with no idea how to put it in context. It's not how it seems. The vast majority of people are good people and not prostitutes, hustlers, delinquents.

My gf did a show in a Cuban jail for youth's who were jailed where her and her group danced for all of them in sexy outfits to a choreographed routine. Doesn't exactly sound so horrible. People I know who went to jail lost weight, okay so they stopped drinking and didn't have access to shitty food...not exactly a surprise.

Lots of negatives are seen about freedom and a lack of freedom which is mainly due to the travels barriers. But these are largely imposed by other countries. Contrary to popular belief at the current time the vast majority of Cubans can obtain a passport. But goodluck having another country accept you as a visitor...

Look at the estimated GDP per capita here a 2009 estimated ranks it one spot below Peru at $9900. While ahead of places like Ukraine, China, DR, Jamaica. (89th in the world per CIA world fact book). The Penn World Table rates it even more highly with a GDP per capita of $14,974 (59th in the world).... ahead of Argentina.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cou...per_capita
There are plenty of problems in the country and it would be nice if the people had more purchasing power. But it's not some desolate wasteland as many people make it sound.

I'll be in Cuba all summer if any Rooshvers are there let me know via pm. I will be in Havana (city/downtown) primarily.

I don't want to burst anyones bubble but the embargo probably won't be lifted in the next 15 years.

Post: #11

agree with you mate, I found many happy people on my visit to Cuba in contrast to what I'd been told for years.

Post: #12

Never it's too late to learn how to play and sing good music, and not the shit Beyonce and Jay Z sing and dance to.

Post: #13

Jay is probably thinking...

"Fuck, if I knew there was a whole island full of Beyonces, I would have never gotten married! Damn!"

Post: #14

(04-09-2013 02:42 PM)Giovonny Wrote:  Jay is probably thinking...

"Fuck, if I knew there was a whole island full of Beyonces, I would have never gotten married! Damn!"

LMAO! That's right, you got it. You can find thousands of fine Black and Mulatto women in Cuba, not the average BBW Black sistas of America.

Post: #15

Jay Z addresses the BS in a new song

http://tv.yahoo.com/news/jay-z-addresses...00937.html

Post: #16

Did you guys look at the pictures of the 2 of them down there. No offence to Beyonce but at this point in her career I've certainly seen better looking girls there that look similar to her in her younger days.

Post: #17

http://movies.yahoo.com/news/jay-z-blast...50915.html

Jay-Z Blasted by '21 Jumpstreet' Director Over Cuba Trip

Jay-Z responded to critics of his Cuba trip with a song called "Open Letter" and now "21 Jump Street" director Phil Lord has responded to the song with an open letter of his own, blasting the rapper for "being a bad artist."

Although Jay-Z's Cuban excurision with his wife, Beyoncé, and both their mothers was approved by the U.S. Treasury Department, Lord -- the son of a Cuban refugee -- told the Huffington Post that the rapper's newest single upset him to the point where he had to speak his mind.


Read the entire letter below:
An Open Letter to Jay-Z
Dear Mr. Z,
I just heard your new track, "Open Letter," released today. It's got everything I love about your music: looping internal rhymes, an infectious beat, and imagery that draws me into a kind of swaggering, defiant fantasy.

Speaking of defiant fantasies, I've been following news of your recent trip to the island nation of Cuba. As the son of a Cuban refugee, and cousin and nephew to many Cubans on the island, I cringe when Americans visit Cuba for a fun island vacation. For one thing it's illegal (which nobody seems to care about), but more importantly, it's either ignorant of or calloused to the struggles of Cubans on the island. I actually encourage my friends to travel to Cuba, to bear witness to one of the great tragedies of our time, to learn about the real Cuba, to put a human face on the caricature of Americans that the Castros propagate. Exchange and travel between our two nations should be a catalyst for change, as it has been even in my own family. But for me, Cuba is not the place to have a fun, sexy, vacation. Because for Cubans on the island and living elsewhere, it's not.

So when I heard of your visit, I thought to myself, Jay Z seems like a smart, thoughtful guy. He doesn't realize what he's walking into. He probably just thinks Cuba is a chic place to relax with the family. He probably just doesn't know the things I know.

He likely doesn't know that the Cuban tourism industry is run by the Cuban military, so when he spends money at an officially sanctioned hotel, or restaurant, he is directly funding the oppressors of the Cuban people.
He doesn't know that most Cubans have poor access to independent news sources, the internet, books, and food.

He doesn't know that Cuba has two health systems, one for the well-connected, and one for everyone else.

He doesn't know that before Castro, the Cuban peso traded one-to-one with the dollar, and that since then, the Castros have raided the nation's coffers and introduced widespread poverty to a once prosperous nation.

He doesn't know that my ancestors fought to free Cuba from Spain, and to set up a democracy to ensure that they would always be free.

He doesn't know that in spite of those dreams, my mother and her family fled for their lives from this regime way back in 1960, as did *two million* other Cubans.

He doesn't know about the thousands of people executed by firing squads led by sexy t-shirt icon Che Guevara.

He doesn't know about the dissidents, artists, and librarians that currently rot in Cuba's prisons, and the thousands more who live in fear.

He doesn't know about Orlando Zapata Tamayo, an Afro-Cuban dissident who died in a Cuban prison in 2010 after an 80-day hunger strike.

He doesn't know that a U.S. Citizen, Alan Gross, is currently serving a 15-year sentence in a Cuban prison for providing phones and computers to the members of the Cuban Jewish community. He doesn't know that all attempts by our government and private citizens to secure his release have been scoffed at.
He has likely forgotten about all those who have died in the Florida Straits, trying to float on makeshift boats to freedom.

He doesn't know that contrary to popular understanding, Amnesty International reports that repression of dissidents in Cuba is actually on the rise.

He doesn't know that when an international music luminary shows up in Cuba, his presence is unwittingly used as propaganda to support the regime.

He doesn't know that artists in Cuba, with whom he was supposedly having a cultural exchange, serve under the close supervision of the government, and don't enjoy the freedom to defiantly name check the President, call out a few senators, threaten to buy a kilo of cocaine just to spite the government, or suggest that they will follow up their purchase with a shooting spree, as rapped about in "Open Letter."

He doesn't know that just because our country applies a different, some say hypocritical policy to China, it doesn't make either regime any less oppressive, or any more acceptable.

He doesn't know that when people say "I've got to visit Cuba before it gets ruined," I think to myself, "It's already ruined. And by the way, ruined by what? freedom of speech? walls that don't crumble? shoes? Do you mean ruin Cuba? Or ruin your fashionable vacation in Cuba?"

He doesn't know that when I really start to think about all this, I get so mad I can't sleep.

He doesn't know that when he's wearing that hat, smoking that coveted contraband cigar, he looks like a dupe.

He doesn't know how much good he could be doing in Cuba, for Cubans, instead. Bearing witness, supporting artistic freedom, listening.

He doesn't realize that as someone privileged to be born in a free society, one in which someone could come from nothing and become a celebrated music, sports, fashion, business and political mogul, it's not only his good luck to be able to bring to light the needs of the less fortunate, it's his obligation.
But then, Jay-Z, I heard your new song, and paid attention to the lyrics.
I heard you bragging about your "White House clearance."
I heard you talk about how much you enjoy Cuban cigars.

And I heard you tell the President I voted for, "You don't need this shit anyway, chill with me on the beach."

You reject the responsibility to speak up for an oppressed people, even while you take up your own cause with gusto.
Then I figured it out.

You actually know all of this stuff, you just don't care.
That's not just being a bad citizen, or a bad neighbor.
It's being a bad artist.
It's Nihilism with a beat.

Post: #18

http://news.yahoo.com/rubio-beyonce-trip...54976.html

Looks like the Mafia is weighing in strong

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sen. Marco Rubio says entertainers Beyonce and Jay-Z missed a chance while in Cuba to see firsthand the effects of political oppression.

The Republican lawmaker from Florida calls their recent trip "hypocritical" and he takes issue with the U.S. government's approval of the visit as a cultural mission.
Beyonce and Jay-Z marked their wedding anniversary in Havana last week.

U.S. citizens aren't allowed to travel to Cuba for mere tourism, though they can obtain licenses for academic, religious, journalistic or cultural exchange trips. These people-to-people licenses were reinstated under the Obama administration.

Rubio, a Cuban-American, says such trips provide money to the Castro government to oppress the Cuban people.

Rubio discussed the trip during interviews Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union," ABC's "This Week" and NBC's "Meet the Press."

Post: #19

Marco Rubio was born in Miami and has NEVER been to Cuba...But hey, I'm sure he knows all about it

Post: #20

I was surprised by Pitbulls responds track. The flow was sick. he is calling everyones BS.

http://www.billboard.com/articles/column...pen-letter

“Politicians love to hate you/ But then run away when it’s time to debate you,” he raps in the song posted online Sunday (April 14). “Question of the night, would they have messed with Mr. Carter if he was white?"

Pitbull closes his "Open Letter" with an anniversary wish to Jay-Z and Beyoncé: "Happy 5th year anniversary/ Jay and B, don't worry it's on me."

Post: #21

The way these politicians are acting one would think the US doesn't trade or let its citizens visit China and Saudi Arabia and many other regimes that it supports which are all worse than Cuba. All countries do dirty business (including Canada) but this is just stupid. I am not complaining though, if the Americans were allowed to visit Cuba, all the vacation packages from Canada to Cuba would be more expensive and less fun (too many people).

Post: #22

I'm not sure what to think of Pitbull on the matter. He is completely against the leadership of the government and the lack of freedoms in Cuba and all about the freedom America has. But I feel as though hes a pretty biased figure. Hes rich as fuck, and famous. If he was still dealing dope and living the street life I question whether he'd still say the same especially when he sees his buddies dead in a ditch from being shot by some guy who will never be brought to justice. He again is Miami born and likely has not visited the island.

Another positive is the lack of drugs in Cuba. I've only seen marijuana a couple times. Harder drugs I've never seen there. No offence to those who support drugs but the lack thereof is pretty damn impressive if you ask me while America creates ridiculous laws and enforcement as to drugs ad still can't even remotely stop it. None of the girls I've dated there have ever smoked marijuana. Most hadn't seen it before.

I think people need to also consider the fact is that the Cuban people who emigrated to America are likely those who didn't like it their otherwise why would they move. So you have a huge selection bias.

They do need to put more discretionary income in the hands of the people. That is an issue. As to lack of freedom. I hear that all the time...I'm still not sure what to think of that.

Post: #23

http://www.worldtribune.com/2013/04/17/t...edfellows/

Targeting Sen. Menendez: Obama’s push to ‘normalize’ U.S.-Cuban ties made strange bedfellows

The seemingly unrelenting wave of media “revelations” in the United States against one of the key strategic policy officials in the government, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez (Democrat, New Jersey), has its origins not in any malfeasance or misadventure by the Senator, but in deeper political warfare involving the Cuban government and others.

A “perfect storm” of coinciding political interests in Havana, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere in the Americas has now focused increasingly around Sen. Menendez as the key impediment to the desires of the Cuban government and the White House to re-establish U.S.-Cuban relations. But behind this may also be that he stands in the way of Cuban-related criminal activities.

Post: #24

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/0...V720130801

(Reuters) - After several frenetic days of traveling, listening to lectures, walking through historic Havana and meeting Cubans, Terry McAbee did not hesitate when asked what the trip with her fellow West Virginia school teachers was missing.

"Beach time," she said with a laugh. "They have these beautiful beaches and we can't go."

"We're not supposed to be having fun," another teacher, Steve Stanley, joked as they sat sipping drinks with 20 fellow travelers in a small Havana bar.

They are part of the growing flow of Americans to Cuba on so-called "people-to-people" trips, the only kind the United States government allows for most citizens under its 51 year-long trade embargo of the one-party state.

The trips are regulated to be more like work than fun - "meaningful" in the political parlance of the times - so no beach time on heavily scheduled sprints through Cuban society.

Despite that, people pay a lot of money to visit the Caribbean island that has been mostly off limits the past half century even though it is just 90 miles from Florida.

A four-day trip to Havana for two costs nearly $5,000, not including airfare, but the forbidden fruit aspect of Cuba is a big draw, said Edward Piegza, who led the first trip for his San Diego, California-based travel company Classic Journeys.

"It is a place and a people so close, yet off limits to us that it creates the natural desire of wanting what you can't have," Piegza said. It is, he said, a place many travelers want to see before they die.

Tourists from other parts of the world, mostly Canada and Europe, freely visit the island for its beaches, vintage American cars and Spanish colonial architecture.

In its short history, "people-to-people" travel has been a political football, a reflection of the tug-of-war between those who want to change U.S. policy toward Communist Party-ruled Cuba and those who do not.

It was authorized in 1999 under President Bill Clinton, then shut down by his successor President George W. Bush in 2003 and reinstated in 2011 by President Barack Obama.

While the United States tightly controls licenses for travel to Cuba, Havana approves the itineraries.

Cuba's dissidents, considered by Havana to be mercenaries of the U.S. government, is predictably not part of the "people-to-people" contacts.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control or OFAC, the U.S. Treasury agency which enforces the embargo, said it has granted 250 licenses since Obama reopened the program.

'EXOTIC' AMERICANS

One travel agency, Insight Cuba, will bring 150 groups to Cuba this year, its president Tom Popper said. Popper estimates as many as 75,000 travelers could go to the island in 2013.

The first trips of the Obama era began in August 2011 and since then Americans, once so rare as to be almost exotic, have become a common sight, particularly in Havana.

So far, the groups are made up mostly of white, middle-aged and retired people, but the most famous visitors were two young, black superstars - rapper Jay-Z and singer Beyonce.

The married couple attracted international media coverage in April as they strolled through Old Havana, met Cuban artists and enjoyed the music scene, often accompanied by adoring crowds.

The trip touched off a controversy among Cuban-American groups and politicians who oppose liberalization of U.S.-Cuba policy and questioned its legality.

As it turned out, the couple had a proper "people-to-people" license - and did not visit the beach.

Before Cuba's 1959 revolution, it was a playground for American celebrities and socialites, among them singer Frank Sinatra, author Ernest Hemingway and actress Ava Gardner.

For the West Virginians in Cuba in 2013, their trip was organized by Washington-based Cuba Educational Travel. That meant conversations with artists, historians, teachers, priests, and small business owners, who described their work and lives in a country that is slowly modernizing its economy.

They sat on the floor of a cramped Central Havana apartment to talk with hip hop artist Magia Lopez Cabrera and watch her music videos on a laptop. They went to the Madrigal, one of the stylish new private bars opened under economic reforms by President Raul Castro, where they talked with university students and the bar owner, filmmaker Rafael Rosales.

"Now I have to worry about paying the bills, paying my employees," Rosales said with a wan smile.

After a few questions, they rewarded him with a spontaneous rendition of the unofficial anthem of West Virginia, "Take Me Home, Country Roads," by late singer John Denver.

CUBANS AND AMERICANS LIKE EACH OTHER

The tours help to provide people with a different perspective than the propaganda aimed at them by their respective governments.

At the individual level Cubans working in bars and restaurants are enjoying the generous tips Americans are known for, while those who speak to the groups are getting "honorariums" as high as the equivalent of $250 - a bonanza in a country with an average monthly salary equal to $20.

Opponents of the travel program say the Havana government gives Americans a sugar-coated view of Cuba. Those on the trip said they recognized they were getting a filtered view, but had seen enough to draw their own conclusions - things were neither as good as the Cuban government wants them to think, nor as bad as the United States says it is.

"I'm glad to go home and allay all of those horrible rumors the Americans have heard for so long," said Sonya Shockey, a high school world history teacher.

Perhaps the biggest surprise for both Cubans and Americans is that after half a century of official hostility, they like each other.

"We had this idea that Americans were unfriendly, aloof and always ordering everyone around, but I've found that isn't true. They're actually very nice, friendly people," said Niuris Higueras, whose self-run restaurant is popular with tourists.

Post: #25

Interesting thing about Cuba is how quickly it went from majority white to now majority black. Probably the same thing is happening in London.