Cimafunk, Albita and Obsesión Show the Range of Cuban Music

Few listeners in the U.S. have a clear view of Cuba’s music scene, even though it remains active in several forms, from longtime émigrés like Albita Rodríguez to newer arrivals such as Cimafunk and Havana-based acts like Obsesión.

Cimafunk

Cimafunk built his sound from James Brown, African rhythms, EDM and the music of his native Pinar del Río. He began in Havana as a session arranger, then spent time with the experimental collective Interactivo before launching his solo career with 2017’s Terapia. His second album, El Alimento, was nominated for a Grammy.

He has since picked up two more Grammy nominations, including one for “Todo Colores,” his collaboration with Tank and the Bangas, and another for his 2024 album Pa’ Tu Cuerpa (For Your Body). Based in New Orleans in recent years, Cimafunk now tours the U.S. with headlining dates and festival slots. He remains largely independent and outside the usual music industry machinery.

He also points to El Paquete Semanal, the low-cost internet-based service launched in 2008 by local entrepreneurs, as a major reason his early music found an audience. The digital bundle circulated underground in Cuba as a substitute for broadband. “Those kids created this huge mechanism of promotion, and it was 100% effective,” Cimafunk says. “You couldn’t be famous in Cuba without El Paquete.” He adds that the package is still a main source of entertainment media for many Cubans.

Despite living in the U.S., Cimafunk says his Pinar del Río roots still shape the music. “People are really close to their neighbors,” he says. “Really communicative.” He says that spirit carries into local music. “Everybody does it their own way, but they collaborate.” He also describes his hometown scene as less competitive than Havana or Santiago de Cuba.

His stage name references his ancestral cimarrón heritage, a nod to communities formed by escaped slaves during Cuba’s colonial period. Cimafunk says the name marked “the beginning of my way to say things” about identity, roots and the slave trade. Still, he resists making too much of that symbolism. “I don’t take it as some responsibility or some work that I have to do,” he says. “I’m just chillin’ with that.”

Albita Rodríguez and Chucho Valdés. (Photo by Martin Espino / Innercat Films)

Albita

Albita Rodríguez is one of Cuban music’s most established figures. Born in Havana, she has earned 15 Grammy or Latin Grammy nominations and one win. Her career has long drawn on Cuban country and folk traditions, and she is a major interpreter of guajira, a poetic style marked by Flamenco textures. She began performing as a teenager in the late 1970s.

Her debut, Habrá Música Guajira (There Will Be Guajira Music), arrived in 1988. “With its rhythm and simplicity, guajira music has a unique ability to connect with the deepest part of the human soul,” she says. “Through its melodies, you can feel the very essence of Cuba.”

Now living in Miami, Albita says she stays closely connected to the culture and music of her home country. “Over the years, Cuban music has evolved constantly, adapting to new influences without losing its identity,” she says. “Cuban musicians have always been very skilled at merging the best of other cultures while creating something entirely their own, something ‘Cuban.’”

She says that synthesis is central to the music’s reach. “Even for those who don’t speak Spanish or don’t know our culture, Cuban rhythms manage to convey vibrant and sincere energy that transcends words.”

Her latest album is Masters of our Roots, a collaboration with pianist, bandleader and seven-time Grammy winner Chucho Valdés. “We managed to blend the best of Cuban tradition with contemporary touches,” Albita says, “creating a work that, while respecting the root, also shows a modern vision of our music.”

She says the larger goal is keeping the tradition alive for younger listeners. “Not staying in the past but knowing how to carry that tradition to new generations, adapting it without losing its essence.”

Obsesión’s El Tipo Este and Magia Lopez. (Photo courtesy of Obsesión)

Obsesión

Obsesión, the pioneering hip hop duo of Magia Lopez and El Tipo Este, has been based in Regla, the industrial suburb on Havana Bay, since 1996. Their early records came out on EGREM, Cuba’s national label, which meant limited U.S. distribution. In 2003, the duo toured the U.S. and shared a bill with The Roots at the Apollo.

El Tipo Este says the mix of hip hop and Cuban traditions was never forced. “We can’t deny or separate ourselves from who we are, so turning to the rich Cuban music never cost us much effort, it was truly organic and inevitable. It’s in our DNA.”

He also says Obsesión’s work is shaped by Black Cuban experience. More than one-third of Cuba’s population is Black or mixed-race. “But I would say that more than expressing the Afro-Cuban experience, we are the Afro-Cuban experience,” he says. “Our songs are influenced precisely by the fact of being Black people in Cuba today. Every social variable takes on a particular nuance when an Afro-Cuban person experiences it.”

“The themes we explore in our lyrics are very diverse,” he continues, “ranging from the simplest and most everyday in the form of street chronicles, to the most controversial social, political, and human issues.” He says the duo always aims for “a positive message.”

That outlook holds even when the subjects turn serious. Obsesión’s 2025 album Luciérnaga: Crónicas de Luz (Firefly: Chronicles of Light), released digitally by Oakland-based Round Whirled Records, brings hip hop and big band jazz together. It is the kind of record that could reach a wider U.S. audience if it got more airplay.

El Tipo Este still says there is a basic knowledge gap in the U.S. “I think there’s still a lot of ignorance in the U.S. about Cuban music. There’s a lot of diversity. And Obsesión is proof of that.”

He also points to the pressure created by the U.S. government’s blockade, which has worsened economic hardship and driven the exodus of more than 1.5 million Cubans in the last few years, or 15% of the country’s population. Even so, the country’s musical life continues. One major center is Fábrica de Arte Cubano, the former cooking oil factory in Havana that now operates as a multidisciplinary arts venue.

“In that single space, young people and the general public can enjoy a wide range of artistic offerings,” he says. “F.A.C.’s fusion of expressions not only enriches aesthetic enjoyment but also stimulates a more critical, diverse, and sensitive perspective.”