Radio, the media that unites us, it turns 97 in our country. Luis Casas Romero is considered the first Cuban to install a plant, the 2LC, in August 22, 1922.
Opportunities were opened by curious and enthusiastic Creoles as radio amateurs. It would be some years before the ether of the Island could feed on the magic that the new invention brought.
When the merchants understood that they could amplify their businesses to remote places, without the need for transportation or educated people so that their messages could be interpreted, the country expanded stations and, with them, all kinds of official notes, music of the time and the usual ads joined.
Some press media feared the appearance of the medium, and then used it to reach the human voice where the printed paper could not. There is no immediacy like that achieved by the radio.
In developing countries it is the medium par excellence. What housewife does not have a favorite radio soap opera, a social facilitation program or a newsletter to stay informed while doing her daily tasks?
Mixture of cultures, mixture of rhythms, dissimilar idiomatic accents, new ideas, all that and more is the world seen through radial sound. Cuba, a small country, but intellectually powerful, was a forerunner of this media.
In these 97 years we went from the plates to the tapes and from those to the digital era so that the Creole ether crosses its history, which now the Internet allows to be heard in real audio from anywhere on the planet.
Felix B. Caignet gave us the right to be born, Clavelito put his thoughts on us, the Rebel Quartet announced, from the wild mountain range, new life for all, José Antonio Echeverría bequeathed, in his last message to the people of Cuba, the moving power of the Radio.
How many times have we waited for the explanatory note before an undercover fact of the enemy? How many, in the middle of a hurricane, our only hope has been the voice that indicates the trajectory of the meteor?
The spoken word, as a divine resource that catches and seduces that invites you to dream by the ear, has passed the test of time. Other media have tried to overcome it and, to some extent, they have succeeded, but all include it, they need it.
Those of us who believe in radio, from the Cuban Music Broadcaster, will continue to nurture ourselves with the popular feeling and work tirelessly, so that the colors of this sound reach the listeners with total clarity.
Translated by Susel Esquivel
