Lyrics & text
CUBATON's texts are very direct and outspoken. The artists are singing about everyday themes such as love, breakups, pain and sex as well as the crime rate and violence happening on their streets (Barrio). But sex is by far the most frequent theme throughout the songs. In many cases, the texts are deliberately ambiguous; but, on the other hand, also often very straightforward and obscene. The lyrics are kept mostly in Spanish rap, which are stylistically situated in between the fast, hard "toasting" of Dancehall and melodic and slow Old School hip hop. The gap between East and West is another common theme. Individuals which were not born in the capital Havanna are pejoratively called "Palestinos" or "Palestinas" (someone coming from rural area) because the influx in the last couple of years grew dramatically.
Women have taken on a special role in the CUBATON. A woman can be called gata (cat), wild cat ("gata fiera") or "felina" (feral cat) sometimes even cat on heat ("gata Suelta"). This cat is beautiful and graceful ("gata sandunguera"), but also a bandit ("gata bandida", "gata gangster") and waylayer ("bandolera") who are lurking for men as their prey. In that case, she can be cheating on the man with ease ("gata traicionera") but is superior and not trustworthy. She's a devil in bed ("diabla en la cama") and abuses men ("abusadora"). This is not just a male projection. This version of a Latina is put together of the following patterns: The Latina is a strong, beautiful, independent and irresistible woman, mixed with a little gangster-rapper-image. Not to think, that the women are easy to get, even though the music revolves around sex. In Ivy Queens biggest Reggaeton hit is she singing: Yo quiero bailar, tu quieres sudar y pegarte a mi, el cuerpo rozar, y yo te dige: sit u me puedes provocar eso no quiere decir que pa' la cama voy.- I wanna dance, you wanna sweat and kiss me, touch my body and I tell you: even if you achieve to provocate me it doesn't mean I'll go to bed with you.- This also applies to the Cuban Latinas.