Haitian Beatz

This is a very fascinating interview, I must say I learned a lot from this interview from the " Cuban"...and Alan did a terrific job with the questioning.

Alan Cave -Hi Cuban,  How are you big brother? It’s a pleasure for me to ask you some questions that are always on my mind.

Cubano- What’s up Alan? First I’ve always wanted to have the opportunity to congratulate you publicly on a well job done in introducing your smooth style in the HMI You’ve created a school for many of our new generation teachers and have so many Compas fans go crazy about you, particularly the females lol.

Alan Cave- What is the story behind the name "Cubano“?

During my days with Shleu Shleu, I was brilliant in interpreting some of the top Latin songs… like Cafe by Eddie Palmieri, Ausencia, Che Che Cole, Willie Colon and finally when I did an interpretation of a kompa song in Spanish that was “Haiti mi pais” lyrics by Serge Rosenthal… that’s what did it for my band mates who felt that I had in me this Cuban style. They started calling me Cuban, and I was not too happy of people changing my name…but had no choice to accept it… and as you know it became my adopted stage name.

Alan Cave- In the HMI you can not say Cubano without saying Roger M. Eugene (Shoubou). Tell me about your relationship with Shoubou since you both came from the same town in Haiti (Port-De-Paix)?

We‘re from the same town Port de Paix, we went to the same elementary catholic school “Les freres de L’Instruction Chrétienne” from 5 to 12 years old. We did our secondary schooling at the “College Our Lady of Lourdes”…the school was under the direction of the Montfortains priest from France and Canada same as St Louis de Gonzague or Petit Seminaire St Martial.  We were members of the choir and we did have some great time there together. The Reverend Father Roger Schmidt, a brilliant Organist and harmonica player, introduced us to music literature and singing. At the age of 16, we moved to the capital Port au Prince to continue our education.  Shoubou went to Lycee  in Petion Ville ,I went to Lycee Toussaint Louverture. During the weekend we also took accounting courses at the “Julian Crane Institute” for 2 years. When Summer time used to arrive, we’ll go back home to meet with our friends, we had a small group called “La Perle des Antilles”, we use to play music almost everyday; we started to build a fan base, especially many beautiful ladies; both Shoubou and I would often compete as who would get the prettiest girls.