List of Famous people born in Cuba
Bebo Valdés
Dionisio Ramón Emilio Valdés Amaro, better known as Bebo Valdés, was a Cuban pianist, bandleader, composer and arranger. He was a central figure in the golden age of Cuban music, especially due to his big band arrangements and compositions of mambo, chachachá and batanga, a genre he created in 1952. He was the director of the Radio Mil Diez house band and the Tropicana Club orchestra, before forming his own big band, Orquesta Sabor de Cuba, in 1957. However, after the end of the Cuban Revolution, in 1960, Bebo left his family behind and went into exile in Mexico before settling in Sweden, where he remarried. His musical hiatus lasted until 1994, when a collaboration with Paquito D'Rivera brought him back into the music business. By the time of his death in 2013, he had recorded several new albums, earning multiple Grammy Awards. His son Chucho Valdés is also a successful pianist and bandleader.
Onelki García
Onelki García is a Cuban professional baseball pitcher for the CTBC Brothers of the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL). He has played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Los Angeles Dodgers and Kansas City Royals, and in Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) for the Chunichi Dragons and Hanshin Tigers.
Chucho Valdés
Jesús Valdés Rodríguez, better known as Chucho Valdés, is a Cuban pianist, bandleader, composer and arranger whose career spans over 50 years. An original member of the Orquesta Cubana de Música Moderna, in 1973 he founded the group Irakere, one of Cuba's best-known Latin jazz bands. Both his father, Bebo Valdés, and his son, Chuchito, are pianists as well. As a solo artist, he has won four Grammy Awards and three Latin Grammy Awards.
Ariel Martínez
Ariel Martínez Marrero is a Cuban professional baseball catcher for the Chunichi Dragons of Nippon Professional Baseball. He previously played for Cocodrilos de Matanzas in the Cuban National Series.
Benny Moré
Bartolomé Maximiliano Moré, better known as Benny Moré, was a Cuban singer, bandleader and songwriter. Due to his fluid tenor voice and his great expressivity, he was known variously as El Bárbaro del Ritmo and El Sonero Mayor. Moré was a master of the soneo – the art of vocal improvisation in son cubano – and many of his tunes developed this way. He often took part in controversias with other singers like Cheo Marquetti and Joseíto Fernández. Apart from son cubano, Moré was a popular singer of guarachas, cha cha cha, mambo, son montuno, and boleros.
Adrián Di Monte
Adrián Di Monte is a Cuban television actor and singer.
Orestes Destrade
Orestes Destrade Cucuas is a Cuban former professional baseball infielder. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the New York Yankees, Pittsburgh Pirates, and Florida Marlins. Destrade also played in Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) for the Seibu Lions. He is now a broadcaster for the Tampa Bay Rays. Like Olympic Stadium, he was nicknamed The Big O.
Armando Hart Dávalos
Armando Enrique Hart Dávalos was a Cuban politician and a Communist leader. His grandfather was born in Georgia, USA and emigrated to Cuba as a child.
Francisco Pancho Céspedes
Francisco Fabián Céspedes Rodríguez, also known as Pancho Céspedes is a Grammy-nominated Latin American singer, musician, and songwriter born in Santa Clara, Cuba. Céspedes is currently a naturalized Mexican. He is most known for his 1998 song, "Vida Loca".
Pérez Prado
Dámaso Pérez Prado was a Cuban bandleader, pianist, composer and arranger who popularized the mambo in the 1950s. His big band adaptation of the danzón-mambo proved to be a worldwide success with hits such as "Mambo No. 5", earning him the nickname "King of the Mambo". In 1955, Prado and his orchestra topped the charts in the US and UK with a mambo cover of Louiguy's "Cherry Pink ". He frequently made brief appearances in films, primarily of the rumberas genre, and his music was featured in films such as La Dolce Vita.