When Alex Cuba imagined his eighth album his dream may have seemed unreachable: He wanted songs that reflect the struggle and emotion simultaneously separating and uniting all humanity but he didn’t want them forever associated with a pandemic. If threading that needle wasn’t challenge enough, the albums behind him—earning him two Juno Awards, four Latin Grammys and three Grammy nominations—represented a tough act … More Alex Cuba: Mendó
More than coffee or summer rain, Cuba is drenched in music. It emanates from bars and homes, along Havana’s Malécon, from the streets and squares of cities and towns, from the public buses that weave through the countryside. Along with the merging of European and African traditions that produced a cornucopia of genres, the island’s perpetual soundtrack helps explain why Cuba is a music superpower. Héctor Valentín occupies one of the highest perches … More Héctor Valentín: Me Quité
A freedom-fighting poet named Perucho Figueredo wrote La Bayamesa, Cuba’s national anthem, on horseback in 1867, after Spanish authorities surrendered to pro-independence forces in Bayamo. More than 150 years on, the city—located in eastern Cuba’s Granma province—still has abundant horse traffic and resounding music composed locally by José Alberto Tamayo Diaz, popularly known as … More José Alberto (El Ruiseñor): Mi Tumbao
Dickens was right in concept but exaggerated the singularity of his age: It is always, in every era and every land, the best and worst of times. Great art often emerges from hard lessons, but sometimes songs written before a crisis rush toward our freshly frazzled nerves like first responders. When he released Sublime last fall Alex Cuba couldn’t have known a pandemic was imminent but today the music of his seventh album penetrates the haze of uncertainty … More Alex Cuba: Sublime
Nations rarely achieve higher living standards without losing some of their essence in the climb. The Cuban troubadour Tony Ávila sings and composes with wit, nostalgia and caution about the grinding wheels of change and progress. The title song of his second solo album—a timbiriche is a little shop or stand that sells food and trinkets—addresses the march to open small businesses. “If selling is a science,” he sings, “let’s see what happens … More Tony Ávila: Timbiriche
