'It was a no-brainer': Alex Cuba on changing his name and becoming a singer in Canada
The Juno-winning singer looks back on his rise in a new interview with Angeline Tetteh-Wayoe
Latin Grammy-winner and two-time Juno-winning musician Alex Cuba released his most recent album, El Swing Que Yo Tengo in 2023. He's currently on tour, but stopped in Toronto to join The Block's Angeline Tetteh-Wayoe in studio for an interview discussing his new music, career beginnings and more.
"I was in a band [where] I was a singer-songwriter," he tells her of his start as a musician. "I needed to pay attention to that."
The full interview is available above and you can read an excerpt of their conversation below.
I just wanted to go back in the day a little bit. You are originally from a town called Artemisa in Cuba, which is small [or] big?
It's about 80,000 people.
Eighty thousand people.
Small is where I live now.
How many people?
Five thousand, that's small.
That's small. That's a big change. You must know everybody, and everybody must know you.
Yeah, well, let's put it that way: everybody knows me.
Not so much the other way around?
But that's exactly what I like about it. I mean, I know that a lot of people like being anonymous in cities and stuff like that. But I love the feel of walking in my winter boots, you know, with [a] beer ... just in my natural state. And everybody knows me and everybody says hi, and I say hi to everybody. And I [love] that vibe and it makes me feel human.
Yeah. Was it because you are the son of quite a famous musician in Cuba? And so was it the same [while] growing up, that people knew who you were because your father was quite famous?
Oh, absolutely. Even though it's a little bit of a bigger town, it's still the same vibe, right? [It's] funny, you know, if I go back to Cuba, I'm still Valentin's son. I haven't earned my own name in my own town in Cuba, you know? So it's like that, man.
But your father's last name is Puentes, so your last name is Puentes.
Yeah.
Why did you decide to not use the same last name?
Well, I'm going to take you back a little. The original name was Alex Cuba Band, and that name came to me. I was in Victoria ... after a couple of months or something in Canada, I was just feeling the country and getting used to it. And one day, that name comes to me, and for me it was the perfect name: three words, four letters each.
Yeah.
This is a brand right here, you know? And I wasn't thinking of myself as a singer yet. I was a musician, songwriter [and] arranger.
Right.
So my plan was to come out with a franchise, and produce this album with whatever singer I wanted to sing my music.
So you were going to be like Quincy Jones.
That's exactly what [he] did, [he] became a brand. And then under the brand, they could showcase anyone they wanted. And they started branching out.
It was funny because it was very early for me in my career in Canada [and] I was already thinking [about making a] brand. But it came to me like that. And then I put together my first album under that name, Alex Cuba Band, and the album was an eye-opener for me because it taught me everything about me.
I was in a band [where] I was a singer-songwriter. I needed to pay attention to that. And when it was time for my second album, the co-producer that I use in Victoria, he's like, "Dude, I'm not going to let you leave the studio without changing your name. You either go back to Alex Puentes or take the 'band' off [and] stay with Alex." And I'm like, "Oh, okay." At that point, my first album, I'd done a few things in the U.K., including climbing the charts, with one of the songs that I did with Ron Sexsmith, [a] fellow Canadian.
Yes.
It was a no-brainer to just take the band [part] off. [Changing] to my real name [would have been] deleting everything that I had done already.
It's interesting because I think I heard you say your father didn't encourage you to sing. So did that create a sort of block for you in your mind to think to yourself, "Oh, my father said I'm not a singer, so I'm not going to sing and I'm going to be [a] musician."
This is a great thing you just touched on. I believe that if I didn't come to Canada, I would have never opened my mouth to sing — simple as that.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length. To hear the full interview, listen to The Block on CBC Music.