In late December, half a dozen members of the Cuban dance troupe Los Datway gyrated and twirled to a reggaeton song in a colonial tenement house in ce

Making money as an influencer in Cuba is hard. These dancers found a way

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2024-07-02 13:30:11

In late December, half a dozen members of the Cuban dance troupe Los Datway gyrated and twirled to a reggaeton song in a colonial tenement house in central Havana, an iPhone pointed at them as they rehearsed their choreography. Since Los Datway posted a video paying homage to Argentina after the South American nation won the World Cup in 2022, the group’s Instagram account has amassed over 40,000 followers and attracted international coverage from outlets like Mexico’s La Jornada and French-Congolese site Africanews.

Although the attention has translated to advertising deals with local shops and choreographing gigs with other artists, Los Datway has struggled to make money directly from digital platforms while in Cuba, home to the world’s slowest internet. Online payment services like PayPal and Stripe are banned in the country as part of the U.S. commercial embargo, and Instagram and YouTube monetization features are unavailable for local creators.

Los Datway was born in 2016 when Darién López, a backup dancer for the popular Cuban reggaeton duo Yomil y El Dany, recruited two friends to practice moves in the neighborhood. “I had social media accounts but couldn’t use them because I had no phone,” López, who goes by Chaiky, told Rest of World. Instead, he used a friend’s phone to start posting photos and videos of their dance routines online.