Cuban singer-songwriter Silvio Rodríguez bids "forever" farewell to "Pepe" Mujica

May 14, 2025

Cuban troubadour Silvio Rodríguez sent a "forever greeting" to former Uruguayan president José "Pepe" Mujica, who passed away this Tuesday, in a message in which he dedicates "Más porvenir" to him, a song of his authorship inspired by the former Tupamaro guerrilla fighter.

"This very morning, in the studio, I was reviewing Más Porvenir, a song I composed not long ago thinking about Pepe's words and actions," he stated in his message released on Segunda Cita, his website.

These days, the founder of Cuban New Song is spending long hours in his Ojalá studios in Havana, preparing the tour he will conduct between September and November through five South American countries. The tour will include concerts in Montevideo, where he met with the Uruguayan leftist leader in 2012.

"Don't think it's goodbye; it's only a forever greeting," he adds in his message in which he dedicates his "first thought" to Lucía Topolansky, Mujica's companion "in every corner of life," wrote Rodríguez about who was also a former Tupamaro guerrilla fighter, former senator and former vice president of Uruguay.

Shortly after news broke in January that the esophageal cancer that Mujica suffered from had worsened, the musician joined the tribute "A song and words for Pepe," which was paid to him by artists such as Spaniards Joan Manuel Serrat, Joaquín Sabina and Argentine León Gieco.

"Dear Pepe (...) I composed these verses in 2009 when I heard you say some things, a few days ago I finished them and put this music to them," he expressed before singing the verses of "Más porvenir" accompanied by his guitar, in a video published in January on the Youtube platform.