Dreadlocked, muscled and tattooed, Aldo, as he was known, was a hero in the hip-hop underground for lyrics protesting the Castro government’s grip on everyday life in songs like “El Rap Es Guerra,” or “Rap Is War,” words he tattooed on his forearm.
He and his group, Los Aldeanos, were about to unknowingly get sucked into a tug-of-war between Havana and Washington, as thousands of pages of documents obtained by the Associated Press and dozens of interviews show.
With Aldo’s own government already harassing his group — his first album was titled “Censurado” — Bozic had been sent to turn up the volume of his protest songs.
USAID’s secret Cuban hip-hop project sought to spread democracy, but like other U.S. operations on the island, it was executed by amateurs.
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