EGREM

EGREM stands for Empresa de Grabaciones y Ediciones Musicales or in English “Enterprise of Recordings and Musical Editions”. Founded in 1964, it is the national record label of Cuba having recorded the vast majority of artists that remained on the island although many artists such as Celia Cruz and Cachao went into exile and recorded their songs abroad. Egrem has its headquarters in Miramar at Calle San Miguel No. 410, Centro Habana, Havana and runs a website on www.egrem.com.cu. The logo of the label consists of an upraised hand forming a tree with musical notes as leaves.

Egrem’s catalog comprises of audio and audiovisual recordings since the 1960s and is the most extensive catalogue of Cuban music around the world. Previously hard to come by internationally, EGREM struck a deal with Sony on 15 Sept 2015 to make the entire catalogue of over 20000 recorded tracks available to the international market as part of a multi-year agreement. This was a historic moment made possible by the thawing relations between the US and Cuba who restored diplomatic relations in July of the same year. It is a real privilege for the international salsa community to be able to access EGREM’s records of the last five decades on the back of this deal while only small portions of the catalogue had been released to various international labels before the EGREM – Sony deal was struck.

EGREM had been built on the back of the nationalization of Panart, Gema, Fama, Corona and Duarte by Fidel Castro’s regime and held a monopoly on music production in Cuba until 1980. Until 1996, EGREM distributed music recorded at its Havana studios using the sublabel Areito and music from its Santiago de Cuba studios under the imprint Siboney. Egrem’s studios are called Areito 101 and 102 and Calle 18 at Havana and Siboney at Santiago de Cuba. EGREM also manages live venues at Miramar, Havana, Trinidad, Santiago de Cuba, Cienfuegos, la Casa de la Trova and el Patio de los Dos Abuelo under the name Casa de la Música. Areito LPs and EPs were internationally marketed under the imprint Palma during the 1960s which was subsequently replaced by Guamá, a sublabel launched by EGREM to commercialise Cuban music around the world.

While EGREM had many initial difficulties resulting from the communist regime such as the inputs necessary for the production of vinyls not being readily available it experienced some investments in recent decades that allowed it to take part in the international market to some extent. That being said, with the constant change in technology and the on-going effects of the embargo it is still no match for international labels competing in capitalist environments where heavy investments and technologically driven quality enhancements are key to competitiveness.