Alex Cuba found his voice in Canada – His sound is a mix of Cuban heat and Canadian cool From: boston.com

Alexis Puentes is running late with his sound check, but the crowd at Copa, a popular Latin dance bar on Congress Avenue here, seems driven to distraction. It’s hard not to stare at Puentes, who performs as Alex Cuba. There’s his towering Afro reminiscent of Sly Stone’s, the bushy sideburns that jut out to the corners of his mouth, the tight-as-Tupperware ripped jeans, the big brown eyes, and the toothy white smile Al Green used to flash back in the ’70s.

Puentes, in town for the South by Southwest music festival, looks exactly like his music sounds: funky, soulful, and, yes, suave. Fifteen minutes into his set, the audience, which had been seated cross-legged on the floor, has gotten up to dance, one by one like dominoes in reverse. They’re spinning around the dance floor, all elbows and hips and Coronas swinging from hands held aloft. But Puentes is giving them something irresistible and completely unexpected: an evening of old-school soul and funk – en español.”*

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