Cuan Robertson is a 23-year-old Durban-born musician and artist who is based in Cape Town, and on an international journey of redefinition and rediscovery. He’s a performer whose music vacillates between the genres of Indie Rock and Pop music with the intention of getting his listeners on their feet and grooving.
As much as Cuan’s current sound and style has been grounded in a sense of playfulness, he also wants his music to bear meaning, both to himself and his audience. Let’s take a closer look at the journey this exciting musician has been on and what we can expect from him in the future.
View this post on Instagram
Cuan started playing the drums when he was nine years old and says that he “fell in love with making a loud noise and just playing hard”. By the time he was 16, he had completed his grade six in drums and decided that it was time to diversify his skill set.
Cuan says that he owes a lot of his development as a budding musician to a mentor of his, Kurt Peinke, who was part of a local up-and-coming band, The City Bowl Mizers. It was during these weekly jam sessions with the Mizers that Cuan picked up his bass and guitar playing abilities.
With the drums and the strings in his arsenal, Cuan mustered up the courage to work on his vocals with some encouragement from another mentor and friend, Daniel Baskin, who was tutoring him on the art of music production. In his final year of school, he entered the annual music competition and performed his first original song, Give it Hell. He won!
View this post on Instagram
Cuan moved to Cape Town and started a university career at UCT where he released his first EP, Maybe Next Time. After the release of this EP, he says that his path became blurred as he got swept up in the university lifestyle of work and parties, although he still played in various gigs around the city.
Lockdown 2020 was a particularly rewarding time for him as an artist. While finishing his thesis, he also self-taught music production. “The process of sitting down and creating sounds that eventually form together to make a song is, in my opinion, a truly beautiful thing. It’s a humbling process that is filled with a lot of self-doubt, but the reward from finishing a song is close to indescribable.”
View this post on Instagram
Cuan says that he made hundreds of songs during that period and only recently released the first of them, alrightokay. “I am still trying to figure out a sound that I want to identify with as an artist, and that’s something that I have dedicated 2022 to do.”
View this post on Instagram
Cuan believes that all his music so far has been nothing more than a learning curve, an opening chapter in his discovery of himself as an artist. He is currently travelling around Europe, networking and learning, and promises that there will be bigger and better things to come in time.
You can find Cuan’s music across all streaming platforms. Treat your ears and go listen to his tracks and remind yourself that by the time he’s famous, you’ll be able to claim that you were there from the start!
Instagram: @cuanrobertson
Also read:
Live music, home-style food and history – This is The Alma Café
Picture: @cuanrobertson / Instagram
