Cimafunk was racing via the airport in Havana final month after spending 5 days in Cuba along with his household. He needed to catch a flight to Florida, however simply earlier than he boarded, his telephone stored ringing many times. When he lastly answered, his group was on the opposite line, telling him that El Alimento — the funk album he’d labored on quietly with the producer Jack Splash in 2021 — had simply been nominated for a Grammy for Greatest Latin Rock or Various Album.
“I stored saying, ‘Whoa. We did it, we did it, we did it,’” Cimafunk, whose actual title is Erick Iglesias Rodríguez, tells Rolling Stone. He needed to get on the aircraft and head again to the U.S., the place he’s been touring continuous the previous couple of months, however he guarantees there’s a celebration in retailer the second he lands again dwelling. “A celebration is ready for me as quickly as I am going again in Cuba,” he laughs.
Cimafunk grew up in Pinar del Rio in western Cuba and began making funk music after transferring to Havana. His first album Terapia raised his profile on the island, the place he’d develop into a standout performer, however it was El Alimento that took his music throughout borders. The LP was an exciting fusion of funk sounds sounds from the U.S. and Cuba, that includes collaborations with George Clinton, Lupe Fiasco, and Cuban luminaries like Los Papines.
“Really, that album was a pleasure,” Cimafunk says. “First there was the truth that when it was achieved, I genuinely preferred the music as a fan. It’s one thing I wished to take heed to. Then the Grammys had been the ultimate golden contact, along with how a lot love the report obtained from the press, the way in which folks related with it, all of it felt like a present.”
El Alimento additionally set him up for a whirlwind yr of touring, with back-to-back reveals throughout the globe. (Throughout our dialog, Cimafunk is definitely at soundcheck earlier than a live performance in New York.) He performed reveals from Canada to Mexico to Morocco and hit festivals like Austin Metropolis Limits and Glastonbury. Folks raved about his dwell set, calling it a “mind-blowing continuous dance social gathering” and noting the “infectious power” of Cimafunk and his band. For Cimafunk, all these performances have cemented why he wished to make music to start with: “You meet so many individuals, and everybody turns into a part of one thing on the similar second,” he says. “There’s some extent the place everybody forgets who they’re and the place they got here from, and so they all meld collectively to take pleasure in the identical expertise.”
He jokes that he wasn’t at all times a pure onstage. “In Cuba, I’d get on stage and shut my eyes and sing too far-off from the mic;” he laughs. “Folks can be screaming, ‘Get nearer to the mic!’ I used to be positively shy at one level.”
As he started performing with completely different ensembles throughout the nation, Cimafunk obtained extra comfy and located his personal sense of showmanship onstage. Even so, he had occasional moments the place he’d be stuffed with pre-show nerves. He remembers his first time in New Orleans, on the brink of share his funk and jazz-influenced sounds with a crowd. “Immediately, I had these chills, like, ‘I’m about to sing this music right here, the place it was invented,” he laughs. “I had some anxiousness, however after I began to sing, folks actually embraced what I used to be doing.”
Whether or not he’s taking part in a tiny membership or gigantic pageant, Cimafunk races from one facet of the stage to a different, amping up his followers and getting them transferring. After wrapping a number of dates in New Jersey and California earlier this fall, he’s now preparing for one closing present on New 12 months’s Eve at Grand Park L.A. After that, he has extra dates on the way in which — in addition to new music, which has been impressed by his dwell present expertise.
“I’m engaged on loads of new issues proper now and it’s centered on the groove I’ve been discovering every time I’m onstage,” he says. “It has lots to do with the response to being in entrance of an viewers, which has been taking part in a task within the preparations and the rhythms. I would like all of it to seize how music feels if you’re seeing it in entrance of you.”