To hear reparto in Havana, you don’t have to go far.
It’s playing in every taxi, every café lining La Habana Vieja, on Friday nights at Don Cangrejo and Saturday mornings at Mio y Tuyo. A homemade mix of reggaeton and traditional Cuban rhythms, it’s the preeminent soundtrack of Cuba today — and it’s continued surging from the island’s barrios.
In Spanish, “reparto” means different things. Usually, the word can mean “allocating” or “dividing and sharing.” In Cuba, it’s also a slang term that describes working-class neighborhoods on the outskirts of Havana — residential communities marked by hardship, crumbling buildings, and constant shortages. It’s in these districts, through artists like Wampi and Wildey, that reparto finds new meaning.
Reparto is rooted in timba, a classic Cuban sound that exploded in the Nineties and fuses Cuban son, salsa, funk, Afro-Cuban folkloric music, and jazz into an improvisational hybrid. Reparto builds on this intricacy by blending reggaeton beats with its signature clave rhythmic pattern.
“Reparto is the streets, the neighborhood, brought to musical form,” says Wampi, whose real name is Dasiel Mustelier Oruña. “It’s music for people to have fun and dance.” The 22‑year‑old has more than 200 million plays on YouTube and Spotify, with hits like “Por Ustedes (Pornosotros 2)” and “Tienes Que Nacer de Nuevo.” These numbers are likely an underestimation, though. In a country with state‑sanctioned and spontaneous power outages almost daily, heavily limited internet, and platforms like Spotify fully restricted, reparto didn’t take hold of Cuba through radio waves or record deals. The genre grew through messaging apps like Telegram and illicit networks like el paquete — the packet — a system where content is shared weekly via flash drives. Through USBs passed by hand, through cell phone speakers on crowded buses, through late-night parties backdropped by the sea, in the repartos, fiery and rampant, the genre made its name.
Outside his own home, a bright blue house in the remote borough of Arroyo Naranjo, Mustelier Oruña’s music seeps through windows, wafting out of neighboring living rooms and kitchens. “With all of the problems, the fula situations that exist in Cuba, reparto is an escape for people from the streets. They can escape through a reparto track, it brings them joy and makes them feel represented,” he says.
Others note that reparto’s richness comes from its roots in real life. The Afro-Cuban musician Cimafunk, whose real name is Erik Alejandro Iglesias Rodríguez, has watched reparto take off while launching his own global career with funk and hip-hop sounds. Taking updated headshots on a balmy Havana Sunday, he stands chin-up in the center of a white, floor-to-ceiling backdrop, shirtless under a fur vest paired with satin bell bottoms, wide sunglasses, and a choker. On his dressing room table, there are six more pairs of sunglasses. Between photos, he chugs beer out of a plastic cup, changes outfits without closing the curtain, and answers questions.
“I don’t know anything about music,” the three-time Grammy nominee and recent Coachella performer jokes. “Put in the article: ‘This is Cimafunk’s personal opinion. Any contradictions, that’s your problem.’ Just like that.” He keeps going “Reparto is an attitude and a way of life. That’s why people say, ‘You’re a repartero,’ ‘You’re a repartera’ — it’s a lifestyle. I think in Cuba, practically everyone is a repartero. The people in the streets are constantly creating, because they’re constantly living.”
Courtesy of Danzion
ONE OF MUSTELIER Oruña’s biggest hits “Por Ustedes (Pornosotros 2)” samples “Mambo Influenciado,” a track by the legendary Cuban band Irakere that showcases the interplay between Afro-Cuban rhythms and jazz improvisation. On past tracks, Mustelier Oruña has collaborated with former boxer and fellow reparto artist Wildeys García Cascaret, known simply as Wildey. Cascaret credits the Cuban group Gente de Zona for the style, but says it truly formed when artists like Elvis Manuel and Chocolate MC laced their lyrics with Cuban slang, reflecting “how people talk in the repartos.”
From competitive boxer to chart-topping musician, Cascaret came from the streets and achieved fame fast, like reparto itself. He’s become one of the most recognizable voices in contemporary Cuban urban music, with unrestrained lyrics and vocals that continue resonating with audiences across the island and beyond. “When I was 15, I started singing as a hobby, I made a super banger, and that’s how it went. I’ve been a person with a lot of luck in this world of music,” he says, slouching into a plastic chair and clutching a pink vape.
During his boxing career, in his free time he formed the group Ire Oma with fellow repartero Harryson. The music video for their hit single “P6P9” — named after two Cuban buses — reached over a million views, catapulting their musical careers. Although the group separated around a year later, Wildey found success in his solo career, gaining international recognition for his songs “Tengo Money” and “Normalmente.”
“Everything that happens in the neighborhoods is reparto,” he says. Reparto music embodies their experiences, struggles, and aspirations. The sound is characterized by raunchy, self-referential lyrics sprinkled with hyperspecific jargon and layered entendres.
Some reparto critics, however, take issue with the genre’s explicit nature. When Irakere won the Grammy Award for Best Latin Recording in 1980 with their self-titled album, they faced similar backlash. The band’s drummer, Enrique Plá García, notes that it’s all part of the vibe: “In terms of style, so that the groove hits, sometimes it has to be lightly vulgar, and not everyone is gonna like that,” he says.
His advice? “Try to find the equilibrium between the streets and academia. Never turn your back to either, but find the balance.” Rodríguez offers a different solution: “It would be good if women would do the same thing too. We need more women making reparto. That’s what’s missing in this genre — more reparteras.”
“What’s bad is when there’s aggression, when there’s possession, when there’s machismo,” Rodríguez says. “Talking about sexuality is necessary. What’s bad is the aggression that comes with that, when you say, ‘You’re a she-devil, you’re a slut, you’re a bitch,’ you know?…. When it gains popularity, you have to be careful because a lot of people will listen to it. Little kids will listen to it, little girls will listen, so they’ll grow up thinking that that’s what they are.”
Rodríguez supports artists like Mustelier Oruña, who writes sexual lyrics that avoid misogyny. “To me, that’s the most intelligent thing to do — to start cleaning up the texts, to not speak badly about women, to not speak badly about anyone,” Rodríguez says. “There’s no necessity for that. What he’s doing, in order to bring it to the world, is perfect, and people feel it.”
Distinguished from others by his years of classical training studying saxophone at Cuba’s National School of Music, Mustelier Oruña stands among a new generation of artists pushing the genre forward. His album, titled El Rey de Habana, signifies his shift away from what’s typically recognized as reparto, fusing R&B, Brazilian funk, Jersey club, Afrobeats, and reggaeton. “This album means that, reparto is not just a style, it’s not just a rhythmic cell. Reparto is not just the clave and bombo with a bunch of old people. For me, it goes a lot further than that, because in reality, the base of reparto is Afro-Cuban,” he says, as his mom, with a silent smile, places a juice box within reach.
El Rey de Habana features collaborations with Latin artists spanning generations, including classic Cuban band Los Van Van, Haitian DJ Michaël Brun, and Cuban singer Leoni Torres. Mustelier Oruña’s second collaboration with Rodríguez, released in August as a single titled “Que Bola,” strips their usually jargon-heavy lyrics to just one phrase. Likely the most common saying in Cuba, “asere, que bolá” is essentially the Cuban way of saying, “bro, what’s up?”
“It’s an experiment so people around the world learn Cuban slang through the music,” Mustelier Oruña says. His departure from identifying characteristics of reparto in favor of simplified beats and lyrics may help broaden his audience and boost success abroad.
Despite the criticism, economic struggle, and internet restrictions artists face back home, reparto has been gaining international traction. With tours abroad becoming increasingly common, the genre’s reach now extends to the Cuban diaspora. At the end of 2024, repartero Bebeshito made history by filling Miami’s Pitbull Stadium with nearly 20,000 fans. Nine-year-old Valentina Alfonso Puente, a Cuban American fan, almost fainted with excitement: “I’m literally shaking. I’ve been dying to see him. He’s my favorite singer.”
In true Cuban fashion, the concert starts four hours late. The venue fills with thousands of red and blue lights. Fans don glowing bracelets and stomp in unison, shaking the ground and chanting in an engulfing display of Cuban-American pride. Bebeshito pauses and the audience sings his lyrics back, their voices resonating even louder than the singers’ vocals. On the way, an Uber driver complained about traffic, completely unaware of what was unfolding around the corner.
Just as the word encompasses different meanings, reparto’s story is nuanced. It’s a sound born in areas wracked by poverty, yet it pulses with an irrepressible joy. It’s a reminder that reinvention is as much a part of Cuban culture as rhythm itself.
This story is part of our Nuevos Futuros series celebrating Latin music and Latin heritage. Read more here.
