Gonzalo Nicanor Hernández Kesel

Creator of rumba. He toured the neighborhoods of La Habana and met with the toughest rumba people like Chano, El Pícaro, El Amaliano, Aspirina, etc. Known cultivators of rumba acknowledge that there is no better composer of guaguancó than Tío Tom, to whose inspiration hundreds of pieces are owed.

His real name was Gonzalo Nicanor Asencio Hernández Kesel; however, everyone knew him as Tío Tom. He was born in La Habana, Cuba, in the tenement El Modelo, in the populous neighborhood of Cayo Hueso. His life was endless music and a shield against the sadness of his heart, mistreated by those times of misery, abandonment, and discrimination.

He began as a rumba composer in 1934, the year he met the most renowned rumberos of the time:
Roncona,
Mario Alán
Alberto Noa
Carburo
El Güinero
El Checa.

There is news that "Yo cambio palo con cualquiera" was his first rumba, although, possibly, he composed others before without recording them. He lived the good timbas alongside his friends Chavalonga, Quike, El Príncipe bailarín Caballerón, Cocaína, El Pícaro, los Embale, Eulogio and Silvestre Méndez, Guillermón and other reputed rumberos in those long controversies held to the pure sound of the cajón in Cayo Hueso, Los Sitios, Jesús María, Pueblo Nuevo, Carraguao and other neighborhoods.

"In the guaguancó, besides the author, one distinguishes the singer, the dancer, and the quinto. Tío Tom is among those who have mastered all facets. [...]Tío Tom knows how to impart to his melodies an unmistakable and inimitable flavor, and his prodigious sense of rhythm—which reminds us of Benny Moré—allows him to guide singers and musicians through the polyrhythmic intricacies of this music, so difficult to execute and yet so contagious."

Trajectory
Tío Tom cultivated the most varied themes in his creations, such as "comic situations, family tragedies, social problems and all kinds. But a characteristic that makes him exceptional is the treatment he gives to themes like 'toughness' in the neighborhood or 'machismo,' which usually accompanies so many numbers about women or romantic disappointment; thus, in 'Ya ves que me la jugué' and 'De qué me sirve una mujer,' Tío Tom wisely combines love, nostalgia, violence, irony, tenderness, Cubanness... He has never fallen into bad taste of the arrabal [...]."

Regarding the artistic personality of Tío, José R. Rodríguez has said:
"The guaguancó and the columbia, musical expressions of rumba, have never had a more explosive, spontaneous, and prolific creator than Tío Tom... Tío has not confined himself to the 'silly-joke' theme of mockery and rhythmic scissors: he sings to the Revolution, to the homeland, to love and life."

Although he was born in a tenement in Cayo Hueso, he lived much of his life in that area of Cerro known as Atarés and, based on natural talent, prodigious imagination, and a sixth sense oriented toward extracting the sap of popular culture, he became one of the greatest rumberos of all time, author of guaguancoes that form a core part of the imagination of cultivators and lovers of the genre.

As a rumbero after all, nothing was foreign to him: love affairs, heartbreak, the homeland, stories of neighbors, gossip from people, characters of the neighborhood, barbs at other rumberos, the orishas, strokes of luck, hope, and death.

Unlike creators of other genres, his was to improvise and memorize. Nothing was left in musical scores. It is told on Vigía Street that a few years after the triumph of the Revolution, Commander Juan Almeida went to look for him in the neighborhood and took him around various places with record players so he could identify numbers conceived by the rumbero and recorded without receiving the least payment in return. Almeida had Tío Tom register his themes and collect author's rights regularly for the first time.

That said, no one in the environment could deny the authorship of "Consuélate," "Me estoy poniendo viejo," "Bombón," "Changó ta' vení," "Dónde están los cubanos," or the charming "Mal de yerbas," in which he reviews with great wit his taste for cinema.

Sergio Pulido, a neighbor from Atarés, recounts that when he was a boy, Tío Tom would dictate to him in a notebook his guaguancoes "so that someday they won't be forgotten." Pulido was witness more than once to Tío's remarkable inspiration, who, while nursing cheap rum at the stroke of midnight, would construct verses and invent melodies with astonishing ease.

The prestigious writer and musicologist Leonardo Acosta has studied with depth and care the contribution of Tío Tom to Cuban music. About him he expressed:

"Sometimes a fact or a person becomes a legend and this obscures real history. And often a person becomes legendary to the detriment of the person himself, who is relegated to oblivion. In popular music this tends to be common, and we find beings of flesh and blood forgotten or ignored as people, while only attention is paid to their legend; this was the case of Tío Tom, of whom some of his hundreds of musical pieces are known and who, nevertheless, for years remained as an abstraction, a legendary figure, until he was finally honored at the Casa de la Cultura de Plaza, in La Habana, which was attended by dozens of outstanding rumberos from the country. And there was Tío, singing and dancing, as real as any of us. This occurred in 1982 and was the antecedent of the Sábados de la Rumba that took place later, at the headquarters of the Conjunto Folclórico Nacional."

Today, and this is attested to by known cultivators of rumba, there is no better composer of guaguancó than Tío Tom, to whose inspiration hundreds of pieces are owed such as:
Bombón,
Qué quiere la niña
Corazón que naciste conmigo
Los cubanos son rareza
Ya ves que me la jugué
Tierra brava
Bemba colorá
A la fiesta de los caramelos no pueden ir los bombones
Juan Arrondo le gusta el pollo
As can be seen from the titles, the variety of themes is very broad; ranging from the picaresque to the patriotic, and although his forte has been the guaguancó, he also ventured into other genres such as the pregón:

"I stretch frames/ little cribs for children/ and beds for adults."

He died on February 10, 1991.

Works
Ahora tenemos armas y aviones
A Juan Arrondo le gusta el pollo
Al señor marqués, váyase pa'España
Bemba colorá
Bombón
Caballeros, qué mujer
Camilo Cienfuegos
Changó ta vení, Coco pelao baila pa'cá
Color de alelí
Con ese caminaíto que tienes tú
Consuélate como yo
Corazón que naciste conmigo
Viva Fidel
Cuando yo la vi por primera vez
Escondido en las aguas
De qué me sirve una mujer
Éste es mi país
La Reforma va
Los cubanos son rareza
Madre, no llore
Mal de yerba
Mambo Guanahacabibes
Pensé darte mi nombre
Qué quiere la niña
Quita la mano, americano
A la fiesta de los caramelos no pueden ir los bombones
Sangre africana
Se ha vuelto mi corazón un violín
Siempre es 26
Siento que me engaña el corazón
Si tú me quieres
Tan chiquita y ni ná ni ná
Tierra brava
Tun tun, quién es
Ya me estoy poniendo viejo
Ya ves que me la jugué
Yo no tuve la culpa
Viento en popa y a toda vela
Que canten los bandoneones, que ha nacido el Che Guevara