# Osmel Francis Turner, the Grandfather of Rap and director of the Cubanos en la Red group, dies in Havana

**Date:** 01/05/2022

"The grandfather of Rap", the director of Cubanos en la Red, the defender of the environment, of the "Pachamama", Osmel Francis Turner passed away in Havana.

Osmel was an artist who took charge of consciously systematizing problems related to the environmental dimension together with his group Cubanos en la Red; he combined activism and pedagogy with countless activities, experiences and knowledge based on the management and protection of the environment.

Osmel Francis promoted policies that contribute to a change in thinking in the current relationship of humanity with the planet and its ecosystems. Among the cultural projects in which he participated are the phonogram Casiguaguas (the name with which the aborigines called the Almendares River) together with CITMA and the Ministry of Tourism and the collective exhibition titled "Guayaberas of an Ecologist Cuban", always in open spaces and in which institutions and artists participated such as Zaida del Río, Maykel Herrera, Jorge Perugorría, Nelson Domínguez, Proyecto Huellas, Centro de Intercambio y Referencia-Iniciativa Comunitaria (CIERIC), Fundación Núñez Jiménez, among others.

It was not uncommon to find him in Cienfuegos, creating an entire community movement to clean the bay or in Pinar del Río, in any place where he considered his work was important.

Osmel participated and was recognized in diverse events in Cuba and internationally, along with his project. Today culture loses one of the artists who worked the most in defense of life.

One of his most popular songs was "Décimas al sol", which emerged as a result of the television program "Pasaje a lo desconocido". "With a very strong symbolic charge, this song has become a true classic within the Cuban hip-hop panorama, referring to the solar blackout", the posthumous note highlighted.

The Cuban Rap Agency and the National Center for Popular Music have mourned the death of the artist and recalled his beginnings in the Canary Islands, Spain, with a book that would give the group its name.

"With this painful loss Cuban Culture loses one of its most faithful exponents. A tireless fighter for the environment and the Culture of care and protection of the environment".

The cause of the rapper's death has not been reported.