Alex Cuba (Alexis Puentes) is a singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist born in Artemisa, Cuba in 1974. The son of a music teacher, Cuba grew up surrounded by music and began performing from a very early age. After marrying a Canadian woman, Cuba moved to Vancouver in 1999, and it was there that his music began to move away from the more traditional aspects of the Cuban sound into a pop, funk, and jazz-fusion direction. Alex and his brother Adonis formed the Alex Cuba Band shortly thereafter, but soon came to call themselves the Puentes Brothers, and released the album Morumba Cubana in 2000. The album went on to earn the brothers a 2001 Juno Award nomination. In 2003 the brothers decided to put the project on hiatus to work on solo projects.nnAlex released his debut, Humo de Tabaco, in 2005. The album was a critical success and eventually won a Juno Award for Best World Music Album in 2006, a feat Cuba repeated with his sophomore album, Agua del Pozo, released in 2007. Alex Cuba (2009) included his first song in English and attracted international recognition, earning Cuba a Latin Grammy for Best New Artist. Around this time he also began to make a name for himself as a songwriter for other artists, most notably Nelly Furtado -- Cuba co-wrote half the songs on Furtado's first Spanish album, Mi Plan (2009), including the hit "Manos al Aire." His solo career continued with Ruido en el Sistema (2012) and Healer (2015), the latter of which found Cuba collaborating with other Canadian songwriters, such as Ron Sexsmith and David Myles. In 2017 he returned with Lo Único Constante, an album partially inspired by the Cuban film genre. The recording was nominated for a Grammy in the Best Latin Pop Album category. ~ Mariano Prunes