HAVANA, Cuba (AP) --Voicing the frustrations of Cuba's urban youth, local
musicians followed the lead of American rap pioneers as they opened a festival
slamming the police with an irreverence rarely expressed here publicly.

"Police, police you are not my friend," 18-year-old Humberto Cabrera, a soloist
known as Papa Humbertico, sang as the 8th annual rap festival got under way
Thursday night. "For Cuban youth, you are the worst nightmare ... you are the
criminal ... I detest you."

The Cuban duo Alto Voltaje -- High Voltage -- also sang out against the police and
of boredom of Cuban youth.

"I'm tired of the routine," sang Alexander Perez and Norlan Leygonier, both 25.
"How long is this going to last?"

They told the audience that on their way to the concert they were stopped by police
officers and asked for their identification -- a process they said Cuban youth
experience almost daily.

Because some of their lyrics are critical of Cuba's system, friends and neighbors
"tell us we are crazy," said Perez. "But they keep following us."

"We sing about what is happening, we sing from the heart," Cabrera told reporters
after the opening concert.

Such outspokenness about the system has been rare in communist Cuba, where
citizens have traditionally practiced a kind of self-censorship, lowering their voices
to a whisper when complaining about the police or other government officials.

But since the onset of an economic crisis that began when the Soviet Union
collapsed more than a decade ago, the Cuban government has become increasingly
tolerant of complaints about the system as long as they remain generalized.

And unlike their parents and grandparents, who lived through much more politically
rigid periods, Cubans in their teens and 20s are less likely to hold their tongues about
what they see as the system's shortcomings.

The annual festival, which runs through Sunday, features 50 Cuban and 12 foreign
rap groups, organizers said.

Several thousand people attended the opening concert at an amphitheater in the
crowded Lamar neighborhood, just east of Havana. Concertgoers paid the equivalent
of about one cent to attend.

The American artists scheduled to perform include the Grammy-winning group The
Roots, along with Dead Prez and Mos Def. Groups from Mexico and Venezuela also
are to perform.

Also confirmed for the festival is Latin rapper Vanesa Diaz, originally from
California.

Diaz has said that the hip-hop movement in Cuba still retains the essence of the
movement's early years in the United Sates -- as a vehicle for young people to
express themselves.

Rap's popularity in Cuba grew during the 1990s and has exploded in recent years to
include as many as 500 groups across the island.

  Copyright 2002 The Associated Press.