“I can’t run away from where I am, there’s a lot of Cuba in everything I do,” declares singer/songwriter and guitarist Alex Cuba, whose sweet, soulful melodies have won him several Latin Grammys as well as several Juno Awards (Canadian Grammy). Cuba will be performing again in Chicago on Tuesday, Sept. 24, at City Winery.
Nevertheless, Cuba considers his sound has turned in certain senses more global, because “music has been a vehicle to the discovery of my own musical identity”. From his home base in Smithers, Canada, he is describing his musical evolution by phone, as evidenced in his now four studio recordings.
He was born Alexis Puentes en Artemisa, Cuba, in a distinguished musical family led by his father Valentín Puentes, recognized guitarist and music professor and that also included his brother, acclaimed vocalist and composer, Adonis Puentes.
Cuba’s first CD, he considers, was a time of exploration, “It had a lot of Cuban feeling and flavor, and 95 per cent of it was taped in Cuba. However, his latest recording, “Noise in the System” despite the fact that it takes its title from a very Cuban phrase which means to complicate or make things difficult by “adding noise to the system,” he describes as having a more universal feeling.
However, he states with conviction that his music is not rightfully characterized as fusion, “Fusions are dangerous and not everybody knows how to get them right. If what I am hearing is a really hard rap, it’s a mistake to say, ‘I’m going to throw in a conga, or a tumbadora drum because I am Cuban’. You’ll ruin the music if you do that.”
Cuba describes that his movement towards a more global sound also has a lot to do with ten years in Smithers, British Columbia, Canada, now his hometown and a small city of 5000 inhabitants where he is considered a hero. In 2010, when he was nominated for the Grammy for Best Album of Latin Pop and also won the Latin Grammy for Best New Artist, high-school art students created dozens of colorful modifications of Cuba’s logo, which depicts his face, sporting his iconic afro and sideburns. The town celebrated by hanging posters of these on all the doors of the houses on the main avenue and In fact, some of the images were used by Cuba on the cover design of his latest recording.
Living in Smithers has also been important to Cuba’s sound, he adds, because he considered it important that his music touch people above and beyond the barrier of the language. It’s all an important part of the artist’s role in society, he says, “We artists are the conscience of society. We have an idea of where the society is going, what makes us vibrate, and what doesn’t. Music is capable of changing a society, and all of this starts with the relationship the artist has to his own music.”