Throwback Thursdays: Gibson Brothers, “Cuba”

Words by Simone Serwer

My sole reason for loving the Gibson Brothers, a trio of Martinican siblings from Paris who had a string of disco hits in the late 1970s, is rather simple. In their video for 1978’s “Cuba” their object of desire is dark, thin and has her hair in a short, natural crop. For narcissistic purposes I’ve gravitated towards this video on Youtube multiple times and embraced this song with abnormal fervor. (I also favor the tune, a salsa-inspired global hit featuring the French-speaking brothers singing in a hokey mixture of English and Spanish, in part because of a Scarface scene that was cut from the film. Right before “my friend” Angel Fernandez was chainsawed to death in a seedy Ocean Drive hotel, Rocky “Steven Bauer” Echevarria’s Manolo passes time singing it in a Caddy—it’s only in the director’s cut, so you have to own the DVD to appreciate it.)

In a very loose sense, the lady in this video looks like me. That may not sound like much but in today’s video vixen environment, where hyper-curvy “exoticals” reign supreme, it’s flattering to know that three brothers from Martinique with a questionable catalog (see their “Que Sera Mi Vida”) were able to cast their net wide enough to include the sisters who sometimes get overlooked.