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Moving Fro-ward: Alex Cuba

Alex Cuba
The Arden Theatre | Feb. 4

Alex Cuba has had music coursing through his veins from the day he was born Alex Puentes in the Cuban town of Artemisa, near Havana.

From the tender age of four, Cuba has been playing, singing, and performing — first alongside his father, before joining his twin brother Adonis as the Puentes Brothers.

After marrying a Canadian and relocating to B.C., Cuba continued to receive accolades as a gifted songwriter and musician, with his first two solo recordings both receiving Juno awards.

  Yet Cuba says, with a soft-spoken, exotic flare, he really didn’t hit his stride until making his latest self-titled album, which he’s supporting with a performance at the Arden Theatre next Thursday.

“This one is more Alex Cuba than ever,” he says of the recording released in late October. “Nobody’s born knowing what will be. This album feels like I’ve finally arrived and I’m at the top of my game.
“I’m very proud of it. But hey — no pressure for the Junos,” he adds with a warm laugh.

At the age of 35, Cuba says his latest release is his greatest musical accomplishment. But this achievement is closely tied to another career highlight — collaborating with Canadian Grammy winner Nelly Furtado for her Spanish debut album Mi Plan, which was released just a month before Cuba’s album dropped.

“For me, I felt it wasn’t a big gig, but more of a big responsibility because it was the material  . . .  to write songs for her that will be heard all over the world,” says Cuba, who contributed his song writing skills to more than half the album tracks, as well as a vocal duet with the star, between September 2008 and February of last year. “Collaborating with Nelly was beautiful, but it was intense, to find her own personality.

“After that, I went into the studio. It was a challenge at first to tap into my own identity, to feel my own  . . .  I had to remember, ‘That is Nelly, but I am Alex Cuba,’ and I had to find myself again.”

The challenge of balancing the two projects forced Cuba to his tap into his true self, which he says resulted in a swelling and confidence in his own work along with some very sincere revelations.

“When you can open the doors to creativity, then you forget everything about how it’s supposed to be conceived,” he says with much pleasure and pride. “It’s called heart.”