Soul de Cuba Aerosol Mural Navigates Cultural History

Soul de Cuba owner Jesus Puerto, along with his general manager Michael Lamele, took a colorful step in promoting their business’s concept beyond the confines of the Crown Street restaurant’s interior.

A new mural that now graces the establishment’s exterior brick wall fronting High Street is in keeping with the owner’s deep sense of cultural pride and philosophy.

To help promote the cultural aspect of the business, the restaurant began by bringing on New Haven artist and curator Shaunda-Sekai Holloway, who has been scheduling exhibits at the restaurant as part of her Soul Expressions series. Holloway said the shows tend to run for around a month and feature an artist’s talk whenever there is an opening for a new show.

An idea for an exterior mural at Soul de Cuba Cafe was hatched a half dozen years ago with New York graffiti writer and 2017 Hip Hop Hall of Fame inductee James Top, who was part of the group of three artists that painted the new mural, including renowned Bronx writer (The Royal) KingBee, a bee preservation advocate whose ubiquitous crown-wearing bee icon is recognized around the world among graffiti enthusiasts, and writer Two Top, of Danbury.

For the artists, all of whom have who have connections to the Elm City, schedules finally aligned, making the mural project possible. After discussions with the owner and manager, a portrait and powerful symbol of Hatuey, Cuba’s first national hero dating to the early 16th century, was selected. Hatuey, an indigenous Taíno Cacique, remains a symbol of resistance for his defiance of early Spanish colonizers, who eventually burned Hatuey at the stake — but not before he was able to alert the region of the oppression and exploitation that were hallmarks of Spanish colonization.

Large graffiti script that incorporates the bold-featured head of Hatuey reads ​“Way Finders.” The phrase embodies both the science and philosophy of navigation in physical spaces by both humans and animals, especially on the high seas. More symbolically it can refer to the way people navigate the courses of their lives. 

For Soul de Cuba owner Puerto, the mural’s highly symbolic content holds special cultural meaning. It also carries with it a message about his own family’s arrival in the United States and his personal navigation influenced, in part, by connections to his ancestors. Those connections have helped guide him to his current station as the owner of a successful New Haven establishment.

Painting the mural, which started in the early afternoon Saturday under bright skies, was part of a busy landscape of activities throughout New Haven as thousands gathered to hear the final Arts & Ideas concert on the New Haven Green while many others attended Artspace’s ambitious slate of activities celebrating a 30-year reunion of those who have connected with the organization over the years.

A small sketch or ​“cartoon” had to be altered to accommodate the mural’s eight-by-twelve-foot format, according to artist Two Top. It provided visual reference as the crew commenced with sweeping gestural lines that were soon blocked in with solid jets of aerosol paint.

Crisp edges and soft modulations soon combined to create a delicate landscape of earth, sky, water, words, and spiritual ancestral connection.

Inside the restaurant, canvas paintings belonging to the muralists and emblematic of their own journeys from underground artists to successful commercial and gallery artists today were weaved into the cultural tapestries of vintage photos, and artifacts that help set the table for an immersive cultural experience for diners.

As James Top noted in a Hip Hop Hall of Fame interview, ​“We have achieved everything we wanted to achieve when we started this back in the 1970s, which is to be a major force in popular culture. We were an underground culture, but now we’re on top.”

Puerto said they plan to dedicate the mural to the legendary Cuban explorer Antonio Nuñez Jimenez. 

The mural can be seen at Soul de Cuba, 283 Crown St., along with the work of exhibiting New York writers through July.