As a child, Alexis Puentes was so immersed in making music that he would forget to eat. “My mother would have to remind me that I was human, that I needed food,” he said. Raised in Artemisa, Cuba, his musician father taught him how to play guitar. By fourteen he picked up the bass: “And that was the point of no return.”
Today, under the stage name Alex Cuba, he is an internationally acclaimed artist known for blending traditional Cuban folk with North American soul, pop, funk and jazz. He has won a Grammy, multiple Latin Grammys and two Juno Awards for his industry-shaking sound.
Cuba will headline this year’s Encuentro del Canto Popular at Brava Theater on Saturday, December 6, 2025. The concert is Acción Latina’s annual fundraiser supporting El Tecolote’s newsroom and arts programs. This year’s lineup also includes the Afro-Peruvian ensemble Warango, Chicana rap artist Diabbla, and DJ Lizzy al Toque from Chulita Vinyl Club.
Ahead of his performance, El Tecolote spoke with Cuba about how he developed a musical language that transcends genres, cultures and borders. Below is our conversation, lightly edited for length and clarity.
How did your early years shape the artist you became? And do you still need to be reminded to eat when you’re creating?
Yes, I still need to be reminded. That hasn’t changed at all. Those early years were fundamental. They created the passion and the discipline. They created the foundation I needed to later take on an independent career. As you can imagine, it is not easy to be an independent musician. So I am grateful for those years.
In Cuba, American music was pretty, I will say, segregated. We were prevented in a lot of ways from listening to it. It was not played on the radio or on television. But Cuba is a musical power on its own. We had enough music for ourselves.
My father is a musician, so I was born inside of music completely. People ask me when I made the decision to become a professional musician. My answer is always the same. I still don’t remember if I ever made that decision. I just moved through life in music, music being my thing.
My father is like an encyclopedia of traditional Cuban music, so from him I got that. Later on some American music started becoming available. I found Michael Jackson and it was quite the moment for me. I wanted to be like him. I learned how to dance like him and dress like him. I was physically similar to him. People would tell me I looked like Michael. Cuban music and American music started ruling my world and becoming one thing.
Through the bass I played jazz, blues, rock and all kinds of jazz fusion. I discovered people like Jaco Pastorius and Charles Mingus, the great American bass players. It was a very rich time in my life. Conditions were perfect for the formation of a musician.
You write and sing in both Spanish and English. How does being bilingual and bicultural influence your songwriting and the emotions you try to communicate?
Many musicians who emigrate become a little bit closed to letting other influences in. They resist multiculturalism or the sounds of the place where they are. But I think it is essential to function where you are because art is the expression of a moment in time and place.
If you try to replicate what you did when you were in the country you came from, you risk trapping yourself in time. People from the country you left will listen and make fun of you. You sound old. Instead, you embrace everything you now have in front of you and find your own sound. That is my case.
You’ve lived in Cuba, Victoria, and now a small town in British Columbia — far from traditional Latin music hubs. How have borders, distance and the experience of diaspora shaped your sound and identity?
I think it has shaped it in a very favorable way for creativity and uniqueness. What it has done is made me become a unique artist and in fairness I think that is what most musicians want. But it gets complicated when you feel market pressure. That is where being away saves you because I do not have an immediate Latin market in front of me.
What I have is a space to create from a different point of view. I have embraced that. It has shaped my career in a favorable way because it has given me a sound. To me, that is one of the biggest successes a musician can talk about. Knowing you have an identity.
Índole, your new studio album, pays tribute to your ancestors and the African diaspora. What did that exploration look like creatively? Were there moments when you felt especially connected to that Afro-Latin lineage?
I think it is tied to the moment we are all experiencing. We are experiencing an overload of information. We are experiencing disconnection, even though we have more technology than ever to be connected. The album was shaped by that.
I build albums in a free way. Many artists develop a concept first and then work toward it. In my case it is not like that. I write songs throughout a year or a year and a half. When it is time to put an album together, I start putting songs together. Somehow the concept or the path appears on its own.
When I started working on the songs for this album, I discovered they had a lot of rhythmic elements. Rhythms not only Afro-Cuban but Afro-Latino, Afro-Colombian, Afro-Peruvian. Being exposed to so much music by being away from Cuba allowed me to embrace it all. I found that everything was connected through Afro-Latin roots.
Your sound blends funk, soul, jazz, and Afro-Latin rhythms. What’s your approach when bringing these worlds together? And if you had to define the core ingredients of an “Alex Cuba” song, what makes it uniquely yours?
Believe it or not, it is not common to find Black musicians who write deep poetry or thinking songs. For many years there has been a cliche that all we do is dance music, where the language is not important and it is all about having a good time.
From my first album, I brought poetry into my work. Language that is classic, deep and educated. That breaks expectations and I am proud of that. On top of that, it is the many influences I have had. My harmonic language is dense and sophisticated. You find jazz, Cuban music and American music in what I do.
All of that shapes my uniqueness. It is interesting for me to see how far I have taken that. The only thing I can say is that it is worth following your intuition in music.
When people listen to your music, what do you hope they feel? What do you hope stays with them long after the song ends?
I hope they feel love for themselves. I hope they feel that life is worth living.
