Danay Suárez Fernández

Cuban rap singer, considered "the representative of conscious feminine hip hop in Cuba, with an exquisite voice and the most intelligent lyrics".

She was born in Cerro. Self-taught education. She studied computer science. When she was barely 15 years old, being a shy young girl, she began in the musical world, at the Teatro Nacional in the Covarrubias room, alongside other recognized voices of the hip-hop movement in Cuba. Even today she cannot help but laugh when she confesses that before so much public she could not avoid nervousness and decided to sing with her back turned, so that no one would notice.

"It really all started much earlier, when I was on a scholarship in Melena del Sur and an Angolan friend shared with me his taste for other sounds, different from those of Noelia, Álvaro Torres, Cristina Aguilera and others, so followed by my contemporaries at that time.

"After finishing my studies, I began to frequent rap gatherings, which at that time was the genre that motivated me most because of its suitability for expressing everything I wanted to say at that moment. I met Reynor, from the Explosión Suprema group, and Randy Acosta, from Los Paisanos, and little by little I integrated myself into that circle. I dared to make my own songs, although I worked more on the lyrics and not on the music because it is not easy, as people think, to make rap… it is a genre that I respect very much," Danay comments.

Those first songs make up her first album, Libertad de expresión, followed by Polvo de la humedad, "much more elaborate and deep," which reminds her of X Alfonso, one of her mentors, with whom she worked intensely on subsequent international tours. She continued singing at concerts organized by the Agencia Cubana de Rap, the institution that promotes hip-hop in Cuba. Later she began working with Aldo, one half of the rap duo Los Aldeanos. Aldo helped Danay record and produce her own songs ("Libre", "Individual") and she sings with him on some of his songs. Within the underground movement her closest collaborators have been: Papá Humbertico, Raudel, Los Aldeanos, Explosión Suprema, Anónimo Consejo, Krudas, Magyorie Epg, El Lápiz.

Since her beginnings, as an activist of the new generation of Cuban underground rap and her first appearance in the compilation-documentary Calle Real 70, she has done nothing but evolve in the purest artistic sense.

She sang for two years as a lyrical soloist at the Ópera de la Calle, until one day in 2007 a new stage of her artistic career began when she was introduced to X Alfonso, who welcomed her. She participated in the international music project Havana Cultura and sang with X Alfonso for around two years, during which she toured Europe.

She has collaborated with musicians from the musical vanguard of Cuba, until maturing into a solo career that augurs great surprises. She has performed on European tours through different cities such as London, Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin, Istanbul and in others in Latin America such as Mexico. The young performer who moves between jazz, hip hop and traditional Cuban music like someone who knows she owns it, has now fulfilled the greatest dream: backing herself with her own group.

Today Danay Suárez is for many the new talent of Cuban song. This young woman sings and raps with an unusual potentiality. With less than thirty years old, the new diva of alternative song, as she has come to be defined by Cuban and European critics, was already selected by the Havana Club brand as the female voice for her Havana Cultura Live project. And she is considered the "queen of Latin rap, on par with the great urban poets who compose and perform in Spanish".

She recorded the album Havana Cultura Sessions, with British producer Jack Petersson, with whom she worked, together with Mala, during her stay in England. It was recorded in the EGREM studios, together with Roberto Fonseca and the musicians of Temperamento.

She has shared the stage, at different moments of her career, with Julio Padrón, Roberto Carcasés, Hernán López Nussa, Javier Salva, Omara Portuondo, Chicoy.

She is preparing a new album Palabras manuales, produced by Roberto Fonseca.

She won the Alternative Music Award at the Festival Cuerda Viva. Her video "Yo aprendí" won the Lucas for Best Hip Hop Video of 2011.