Habana Blues

X-Alfonso is a Cuban hip hop and afro-rock musician, who played with Audioslave in a concert in Havana on May 7, 2005 in "Tribuna... Anti-imperialista". X Alfonso is 34 years old and has been playing music since he was seven years old, “ When I was around 16 or 17, I started playing jazz and fusion music, working with troubadours and putting together my own arrangements and recordings.” X Alfonso started his career with a group called Estado de Animo while he was still at the music school. From early 1990s, when he graduated, he joined the Cuban group Síntesis led by his parents Carlos Alfonso and Ele Valdès, as singer and composer or co-composer. “I arrived just as the group’s keyboard player was leaving, so I started off playing keyboards. Then I found myself on percussion and vocals. That’s how I learned to play the instruments, through necessity.” The group started as a vocal quartet, then turned to symphonic rock before going on to explore a fusion between Afro-Cuban music—Cuban roots—and contemporary music. X Alfonso explains: “my music has always revolved around roots and exploration. That’s what I’m always trying to convey; I draw on folklore, on Cuba.
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