“I do not sing in palaces or grand halls, nor do they yoke me like an ox,” sang the Buenos Aires native inside the old headquarters of a gas workers’ union—workers who had endured two disastrous privatization attempts in the past and are now state employees.

The audience included Cuban Ambassador Lissett Perez—who spoke of the blockade and the White House’s siege against her country—as well as Palestinian diplomat Ahmad Alsweis and his family, former Chamber of Deputies President Ana Olivera, and Cubans and Uruguayans standing in solidarity with the Caribbean island.

Copani, a true dinger, did not come to sing love ballads or peddle cheap trinkets. He came to tell the truth—a truth that hurts yet makes you laugh at the same time—said the event’s host, Orestes Hernández, Minister-Counselor at the Cuban Embassy.

And that is exactly what the Argentine artist did; with a repertoire of over a thousand songs to his name, he interspersed music with spoken word, firing heated barbs at the neoliberal clique and the “media slaughter” accompanying the anti-state “chainsaw” figure in his home country.

“If it isn’t a dictatorship, it sure looks like one,” he sang in one of his songs.

Representing Uruguay was renowned troubadour Pablo Etcheverry, followed by Andres Stagnaro—a former political prisoner (ironically held at the “Libertad” [Freedom] penitentiary). Stagnaro’s voice cracked with emotion as he sang “Onda Corta” (Shortwave), a song evoking those years of imprisonment.

Diego Cubelli and Javier Luzardo—combining vocals, guitar, and bandoneon—shared the stage with a host of singers who came together to share dreams of a better world.

For “when individualism and disillusionment threaten to fragment social struggles, shared art rebuilds the collective fabric and demonstrates that transforming reality also entails transforming the way we feel, dream, and name the world together.”

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