X Alfonso and the Fluttering of a Butterfly, Ten Years Later

September 27, 2019

With a white sweater and faded pants, X Alfonso walks dragging his flip-flops without taking his eyes off his cell phone. During concerts he dresses in black with his hair down, but today he wears it up in small buns with white hair ties. Every so often he looks up and asks us where we want to sit. He almost seems like a nervous child who has been woken up early from bed.

But there is something that seems to wake up X Alfonso. The color of the benches and the bicycle that adorns the upper terrace of Fábrica de Arte seem to pull him out of that sleepy state, typical of a cloudy morning.

–Have you finished the bicycle? Paint those ones red and then I'll do those ones, he indicates to the painter, while someone opens a room for us to sit in.

It is no wonder that X paints the benches himself. After all, his new record project has also been born and grown here, in this space recently ranked number 16 of the 100 best places in the world by Time magazine. Almost ten years, of which he has spent more than five building Fábrica, his followers have been waiting for "Inside".

"Inside is not a conventional album. It won't come out physically. It's a kind of experiment and innovative project that we are doing with Bonus Track, through experiences, movements and exercises. An adventure of which people will be participants".

It is no surprise that he asks not to call "Inside" an album, but a project. X Alfonso has always liked to experiment. From techno, rock, trovador music, traditional Cuban music and Afro-Caribbean rhythms, "X Moré" in 2001 is a tribute to the barbarian of rhythm and one of those experiments that consecrated him in the Island's musical history. It includes songs such as Oh, vida, ¡Qué bueno baila usted!, And today like yesterday, with arrangements by Síntesis's also singer.

In one of the upper rooms of Fábrica the singer talks about Cambio, the first of thirteen singles that will be appearing from today until next year. His eyes go back and forth, up and down, as if searching for some answer in the sky and the earth. Does X Alfonso believe in God? X Alfonso has gotten married in India and takes the butterfly effect as a philosophy of life, a physical theory by mathematician and meteorologist Edward Lorenz, whose origin is the Chinese proverb: "The fluttering of a butterfly can be felt on the other side of the world".

His songs frequently seek to awaken consciousness, based on the fact that a small action can provoke great effects. Precisely for this reason the cover of "Inside" is a butterfly.

"The butterfly means the soul in many philosophies and I think it is what we need to see right now. Especially in these heavy times. I believe in people. It has been demonstrated all the time that people have a great desire to move forward. That is where my messages come from, towards these people who risk everything they have to move forward".

In recent days some butterflies have been appearing on the streets and facades of Havana. Tanks, pieces of the Malecón and parks have witnessed the campaign that X Alfonso's team has created for this launch.

Complicit, the musician shares a look with his press representative and says that "this is a fusion of almost all the elements that are happening today, but it is much bigger than a record and we will be verifying it".

X Alfonso looks happy. In fact, there is almost always a brightness in his gaze. One cannot help but be surprised then by the pain in his lyrics. His songs end up sometimes being an ode to sadness. Sands of solitude and De corazón are almost a titanic effort to sustain melancholy. Even his videos resort to frozen images in black and white of lonely faces.

Santiago Feliú, one of his references, admitted being an addict to "below zero" (depression), melancholy and heartbreak. However, X has previously acknowledged that "in life you have to be positive and that happiness is in waking up and being able to transmit all that good energy to people".

Perhaps for this reason X seems happy. Nervous and happy. Today his first song in almost 10 years comes out and he knows it. They say that before Joaquín Sabina goes out to sing his mouth dries so much that he always carries with him a glass with salt. Frida Kahlo, on the other hand, made a garden her refuge against nerves.

X looks up and down.

X paints the benches of his factory red.