{"id":32727,"date":"2019-11-06T13:49:16","date_gmt":"2019-11-06T18:49:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/college.unc.edu\/?p=32727"},"modified":"2024-07-02T17:13:02","modified_gmt":"2024-07-02T17:13:02","slug":"mike-levine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/?p=32727","title":{"rendered":"Cuba\u2019s USB-driven music scene"},"content":{"rendered":"

A doctoral candidate in the College of Arts & Sciences’ music department, Mike Levine studies the Cuban music scene and how artists distribute their music through something called \u201cthe sneakernet,\u201d Cuba\u2019s grassroots alternative to the Internet.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Mike<\/p>\n

Mike Levine grew up in a seaside community in New Jersey best known as the birthplace of Bruce Springsteen. His dad was a music instructor who played the alto-saxophone and conducted the local concert band.<\/p>\n

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It was a given that when he became a teenager, he would start a terrible rock band in his garage.<\/p>\n

\u201cI grew up surrounded by music,\u201d Levine said. \u201cIt was a big fixture in my life. Everything seemed to be one degree of separation away from me playing the bass, so music was just what I did.\u201d<\/p>\n

His interest in music eventually took him to some interesting places. First, he went to Manhattan, where he studied music technology and found a part-time job composing ringtones for cell phones. Then he headed to Brooklyn, where he linked up with the band he still performs with today. Eventually, he made it to Carolina, where he found an opportunity to travel to Cuba.<\/p>\n

A doctoral candidate in the College of Arts & Sciences\u2019 music department, Levine studies the Cuban music scene and how artists distribute their music through something called \u201cthe sneakernet,\u201d Cuba\u2019s grassroots alternative to the internet.<\/p>\n

A group of Cubans illegally load up a selection of the week\u2019s greatest movies, albums, web pages and news stories onto USB sticks \u2014 called \u201cel paquete semanal<\/em>,\u201d or the weekly package \u2014 and deliver them door to door. The paquete semanal<\/em> gives Cubans access to digital content they couldn\u2019t otherwise consume because of spotty internet access and state-owned media.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a treasure trove,\u201d Levine said. \u201cIt\u2019s huge \u2014 millions of people use this as their primary means of finding new entertainment and information within the island.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCubaton,\u201d a musical style influenced by Reggaeton but with uniquely Cuban rhythms and sounds, is booming on the sneakernet. So, Levine is talking to everyone involved, from the artists and the distributors to the families who slip $5 through a cracked door for the package.<\/p>\n

\u201cCuba, in general, is a petri dish for new musical styles, but I find Cubaton fascinating because it doesn\u2019t really have a place to be distributed outside of this particular homegrown internet space,\u201d he said. \u201cIf there\u2019s one thing you can say about Cuban folks, they\u2019re some of the most resourceful and creative people you\u2019ve ever met.\u201d<\/p>\n

Levine works with his advisor, Cuba expert and music professor David Garcia, to understand Cuba\u2019s IT revolution and how Cuban music finds its way through the \u201cpeople-powered\u201d internet. But his research is about more than music \u2014 it\u2019s also about rethinking the internet.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very interested in how folks remake digital tools to celebrate their own personal expression in ways that are perhaps unexpected,\u201d he said. \u201cI think this opens up the idea of alternative but equally viable ways of interacting with the internet that perhaps we\u2019re otherwise ignoring or taking for granted.\u201d<\/p>\n

The resources at Carolina, Levine said, has been critical to making his research a reality.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy project is intentionally interdisciplinary, so one of the reasons I loved coming to Carolina was because you have great resources not just in musicology, but also in digital humanities and internet studies and Latin American studies and African American studies,\u201d he said. \u201cI would be losing very important parts of what I\u2019m studying were I not to bring those voices into my work, and at Carolina, all these different voices find a home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Post by Emilie Poplett, University Communications<\/a><\/p>\n

UNC-Chapel Hill celebrates University Research Week Nov. 4-8.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A doctoral candidate in the College of Arts & Sciences’ music department, Mike Levine studies the Cuban music scene and how artists distribute their music through something called \u201cthe sneakernet,\u201d Cuba\u2019s grassroots alternative to the internet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":32728,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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