Issac Delgado

Issac Delgado, born Isaac Felipe Delgado-Ramirez on 11 April 1962 in Marianao, Havana, is a Cuban vocalist and bandleader associated with the rise of timba, the modernized Cuban dance genre that emerged on the island in the late 1980s and early 1990s.^[1][2] Wikidata records his work simply as that of a musician and salsa performer, a categorization that reflects the porous boundary between salsa and timba that has shaped reception of his catalogue.^[3] Timba itself fused Cuban son with salsa, North American funk and R&B, and Afro-Cuban folkloric music, distinguishing it from the salsa developed by Cuban, Dominican, and Puerto Rican musicians in New York.^[4][5]

Delgado was raised in a musical household: his father worked as a tailor while his mother performed as an actress, dancer, and singer at the Teatro Musical de La Habana.^[2] He entered the Amadeo Roldán Conservatory at the age of ten to study cello, an instrument that did not hold his interest, and left two years later before later returning to music at eighteen, when he joined the group Proyecto at the invitation of the pianist Gonzalo Rubalcaba.^[2] He subsequently studied vocal technique with the instructor Mariana De Gonish.^[2]

His professional career began in 1983 with the Orquesta de Pacho Alonso, with whom he toured internationally and made his first commercial recording, and continued in 1987 as the vocalist for Galaxia.^[2] In 1988 he became lead vocalist of NG La Banda, the ensemble led by flautist José Luis Cortés, known as "El Tosco," which scholars identify as the group that launched the timba style.^[2][6] The ethnomusicologist Vincenzo Perna, in a study reviewed by Robin Moore, traces the emergence of timba as a distinct genre to NG La Banda and counts Delgado among the influential figures who followed, alongside Manolín González Hernández and David Calzado's Charanga Habanera.^[6]

Delgado left NG La Banda in 1991 to form his own band, recording "Dando La Hora" under the artistic direction of Rubalcaba, a release that received an EGREM prize.^[2] Over the following years he recorded prolifically and performed abroad, appearing at the Festival of Salsa at Madison Square Garden in New York alongside Celia Cruz, José Alberto "El Canario," and Grupo Niche.^[2] His recordings from this period often leaned toward a polished salsa sound while retaining timba inflections in their arrangements.^[2]

Delgado's standing within Cuban music has been registered across reference and academic literature. Helio Orovio's dictionary of Cuban music affords the contemporary singer treatment comparable to that of established composers, and his compositions appear in published fake-book anthologies of contemporary salsa.^[7][8] The Rough Guide to Cuban Music likewise lists him among the artists of the post-revolutionary era.^[9]