Out of work, Cuban youth revel after dark in Havana's underground electronic music scene.
Rene can’t find decent work in Havana. In recent years, Cuba’s youth unemployment rate has hovered around twice the national average. Today, according to government estimates, the official average monthly salary is about 700 pesos ($25). Even after the thaw in U.S.-Cuban relations, economic forecasts are grim. “You go [out] every day, and you think it will be different,” says 31-year-old Rene, “but it’s always the same shit.”
So he waits until sunset, when he and his friends — not pictured above as they explore an outcrop of an abandoned Spanish fort — gather with other members of Havana’s tightly knit electronic music scene. At dance parties, Rene is a DJ. On a good night, spinning can earn him up to $50.
American photographer Michael Christopher Brown documented Havana’s electronic underground in the spring of 2015. Because his subjects face “part-time or low-paying [jobs]…many are not motivated to work,” he says. Instead, they live for the night.
Rene performs at a warehouse party while his friend Helen, 21, stands transfixed by the music. A Havana native, Rene has been a DJ for eight years. Helen likes to hang out with DJs because they make her feel “famous.”
Rene sometimes travels for work. Here, he and a fellow DJ nicknamed “Chino” say goodbye to two young women after performing at a festival in Holguín, a city 450 miles southeast of Havana. When Rene and Chino, who is 24, perform together, they call themselves “The Sickness.”
Helen stands in front of a memorial for the 1898 sinking of the USS Maine, which instigated American intervention in Cuba’s revolt against Spain. Nearly 120 years later, many youth hope to find an economic escape route in renewed cooperation between Cuba and its northern neighbor. “I need to go to the United States or somewhere and make money,” Rene says. “If I come back, it won’t be by choice.”
Join in-depth conversations and interact with foreign-policy experts with
Every year, the top Chinese legislative and advisory bodies meet for two weeks to rubber-stamp decisions already made by the Chinese Communist Party. It’s called the “two sessions,” an...Show more
Over the last few years, Washington has prioritized relocating manufacturing production back to the United States. Critics abroad argue that America’s new industrial policy is protectionis...Show more
Russia has gone from one mobilization to the next, burning through equipment and ammunition faster than it can replace it—even resorting to the recruitment of prisoners to fight its drawn-...Show more
Industrial policy and subsidies are nothing new and can be useful. But shutting off from the world will have consequences.
The pandemic years strained every system of government.
From Pakistan to Poland, here are this year’s biggest presidential and parliamentary races.
