A stylish portrait of two men in dark suits and sunglasses. The man on the left wears a pinstriped suit and heavy diamond jewelry, while the man on the right has a red beard and wears a double-breasted jacket.Tom G (L) and Sam E Hues at Alter Ego in Tampa, Florida. Credit: Screengrab via Kyle O’Brien / Oscar Pere / Motion Minds

A godfather of the Tampa rap scene links up with one leader of the new school on a tough new track, “Cuban Links.” The track features Tom G, who brought Tampa’s jook sound to the BET Awards in 2019, and Sam E Hues, another gruff-voiced emcee, four years removed from his last full-length, When Tigers Used To Smoke.

The duo returns to Water Street’s music-centric cocktail lounge Alter Ego, one of the three locations where the song’s video was shot (along with J.C. Newman Cigar Factory and the dry docks in Ybor City).

DJ Casper, who did the scratches on the track and is the music director at Alter Ego told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay that the song has been in the works for almost a year.

Hues told CL that he was introduced to Tom G by a mutual friend, Major Plays Only, who got to work with the duo on “Cuban Links” where Hues hoped to merge two Tampa cultures.

“I had a clear idea of what that looked like and started working backwards,” Hues said, adding that he tapped Bay area producers Guy Average and Score to help with the sound and vision. Noel Rochford, from homegrown ska band UNRB, dropped horns, with Casper coming in later to chop up the track. Tampa producer and Joyner Lucas collaborator Maxx Forman mixed the cut.

Motion Minds spent months helping Hues doing the video, which debuts at midnight on Friday (we’ll embed it when it hits YouTube).

There’s no cover, but table reservations are available, for the Tom G and Sam E Hues “Cuban Links” release party happening Thursday, Jan. 8 at Alter Ego in Tampa.

This article appears in Jan. 01 – 07, 2026.

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