Alex Cuba

Alex Cuba, born Alexis Puentes in Artemisa, Cuba, in 1974, works as a singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. Raised by a music teacher, he absorbed melodies and rhythms from childhood onward and took the stage while still very young. After wedding a Canadian, he relocated to Vancouver in 1999, where his compositions gradually shifted from core Cuban traditions toward pop, funk, and jazz-fusion textures. With his brother Adonis he launched the Alex Cuba Band, which soon adopted the name Puentes Brothers and issued the 2000 album Morumba Cubana; that release earned the siblings a 2001 Juno Award nomination. In 2003 the pair suspended the collaboration to pursue individual work.

Cuba’s first solo outing, Humo de Tabaco, appeared in 2005. Critics embraced the record, which captured a Juno Award for Best World Music Album in 2006—an honor he matched with the 2007 follow-up Agua del Pozo. The self-titled Alex Cuba, released in 2009, marked his initial English-language composition and brought worldwide attention, securing a Latin Grammy for Best New Artist. During the same period he established himself as a writer for fellow performers, most prominently Nelly Furtado, co-authoring half the tracks on her Spanish-language album Mi Plan (2009), among them the hit single “Manos al Aire.” Subsequent solo projects arrived with Ruido en el Sistema in 2012 and Healer in 2015, the latter featuring input from Canadian songwriters including Ron Sexsmith and David Myles. Lo Único Constante surfaced in 2017, its themes partly shaped by the Cuban film tradition, and earned a Grammy nomination in the Best Latin Pop Album category.