Cimafunk

One Liner: Funky Cuban making very enjoyable tunes (I just wish I could understand them!)

Wikipedia Genre: Funk, electronic, Latin, R&B
Home:  Cuba

Poster Position: 15
Weekend One Only. Saturday.

Thoughts:  I had heard one of these songs on the radio - he's got a few tracks that feature George Clinton and are pretty fun.  But most of these are full-Spanish tracks which saps some of the fun from them just because I have no clue what is being said.  On the other hand, the joyful, funky pleasure of these tunes is hard to deny.

Real name is Erik Alejandro Iglesias Rodriguez, and he is from Cuba.  He had originally planned on becoming a doctor, like several members of his family, and even went to medical school for two years, before dropping out to pursue music.  He started using this name in 2016, as a reference to the "cimarrons," who were escaped slaves who formed their own communities in Cuba in the colonial era.  Since then, he's been getting noticed a lot, with The New Yorker comparing him to James Brown and both Rolling Stone and NPR naming his last album an album of the year.

Two albums - 2017's Terapia and 2021's El Alimento.  By the time of the second album, he has some good collaborators - Lupe Fiasco, George Clinton, Ceelo Green.  The top track is the one with Fiasco, so I'll give you that first.  "Rompelo," with 1.6 million streams.

Man, it would be really cool if he was rapping that in English so that I could understand what he has going on.  It is a very fun track and you can feel his joy and energy coming out.  "Rompelo" apparently means "break it," so this is essentially Limp Bizkit for the Spanish speaking world.  Good verse from Lupe Fiasco as well.  Kind of feels like something Silk Sonic could have done.  Great fun.

I think you need to hear the George Clinton track too.  Everything on this newer album is definitely better and more polished that the first album, anyway.

I had tickets to see Clinton a year or two ago (was that before the pandemic?  Weird) and had to skip it, but I really wish I could have seen that weirdo do his thing.  Fun track too.  "Estoy Pa' Eso" is some P-Funk biting dumpstafunk.  I think the whole album - it goes between funk and more traditional Cuban music, but all of it is fun.

His top streamer overall if "Parar el Tiempo" from the first album, with 4.4 million streams.

Nothing exciting in there, likely because I have no clue what they are singing about and the song itself is not anything particularly interesting.  Slow start, and then a light groove for the rest.  Not terrible, but not nearly as fun as those other two up above.

I'd go watch this!