Cuban star Cimafunk is in concert this Wednesday at Rockstore in Montpellier. His tropicalized afrofunk is such a powerful euphoric that it is not without side effects: there is a big risk of smiling at life and dancing to your heart’s content!
Cimafunk indoor? It’s bold. Until then, in fact, it is only in the open air that we have been able to see the Cuban star in the region: in Chanac, as part of Détours du monde in 2019, and in Sète in 2021 and 2022; and in Béziers in 2023 as part of these three times Fiest’à Sète (who therefore likes it very much). With always the same result: a peak of combined heat and humidity such that more than one brain was burned and more than one shirt soaked. Normal is tropical? Except that Cimafunk is nothing ordinary: it is not a small passing tornado, but a hurricane that would even tear down a pole!
Today’s most popular artist on the Castro island, Erik Alejandro Iglesias Rodríguez was initially planned to become a doctor like several members of his family. But after two years of studies in his hometown of Pinar del Rio, he gave up everything and moved to Havana to abandon himself to the demon that had always been plaguing him: music. He worked for a time as an arranger and producer for musicians like Raúl Paz and Liuba María Hevia, and played in the group Interactivo. In 2016, he finally launched his own business under the pseudonym Cimafunk (a name which also applies to his group) in reference to the Cimarróns, these African slaves who fled oppression by venturing into the wildest mountains and forests of the Antilles.
A hybridization of Cuban and urban music
A portmanteau that clearly expresses the ambition of our artist: it is not a question for him of cutting off his Afro-Cuban roots but on the contrary of hybridizing them with modernity so that they reach heights! From the first album, Terapia, in 2017, despite some fragilities in production, Cimafunk reveals its enormous potential which, in addition to funk, mixes elements of timba, soul, hip-hop, disco, with a single (and noble) objective: make you dance!
If his rise is slowed down by the Covid-19 pandemic, she offers him the opportunity to refine his formula through singles and meetings. For El potaje, in 2019, he worked with Cuban legends Omara Portuondo and Orquesta Aragón. For Caliente, in 2020, it is with The Soul Rebels that he crosses swords (white hot!). For Cun cun prá, the same year, he is alone at the controls and we challenge anyone to listen to this piece without breaking into a big smile.
Cimafunk has so much mojo that he can afford to do without this little 3’25” masterpiece for his 2nd album, El alimento, in 2021. The qualitative leap is impressive, and the ambition now global, one planet under a groove way. It’s well done, George – Funkadelic- Clinton sings a duet with him on the excellent first track Funky aspirin. Full of bombs for dance floors, the cake in the shape of a disco ball (it spins in all directions, and it shines!) also sees Lupe Fiasco, Chucho Valdés, CeeLo Green and Los Patines come, among others, to say hello; a treat.
Released at the end of August, Pa’Tu Cuerpa, the third album from Cimafunk, now a resident of New Orleans, finds a way to be even better and more open. Without losing sight of his Afro-Cuban bases, nor the funk (George Clinton is still present on the irresistible I don’t care with Trombone Shorty and Nik West!), he dares a new suavity in contact with the Haitian producer Michael Brun ( Playa noche), rubs shoulders with the solar energy of the Colombian group Monsieur Périné (Catalina), invites us to lower our center of gravity with the complicity of Big Freedia (Pretty)…
We are not going to mention the eleven tracks from this recording but we are counting on Cimafunk not to omit any of them from his setlist. It’s for science: we want to know what effect such a medication of euphorics will have in a club.
