Alexio Kiyoshi-Tuari Barboza

New Bedford, Massachussets, USA, 1994

Singer, actor

The great-grandson of Cabo Verdeans, Alexio Barboza was, at the age of 10, one of the first artists from the Cabo Verdean community to start in a Broadway production. It was in 2004, when he played the role of young Simba in the musical The Lion King, the stage adaptation of the Disney film. South Pacific, based on the book The Tales of the South Pacific, was performed at Carnegie Hall in New York that same year. On the album South Pacific: In Concert From Carnegie Hall (2009), Alexio Barboza can be heard singing in both English and French.

Before his Broadway debut, he played Nelson Mandela as a child in a production by a New Jersey theater company. According to his mother, who spoke to The Westbury Times in 2005 (the article is no longer available online), this role opened the door to his artistic career.

Alexio Barboza comes from a family devoted to the arts. His mother, Laura Carrington, was a television actress and played the lead role in Lionel Ritchie’s music vídeo “Hello” in 1984. His father is a world-renowned photographer whose work has been featured in major museums and whose photographs have appeared on album covers by major jazz artists such as Miles Davis and Betty Carter.

When he entered university, Alexio Barboza chose to study History and Theater.

To know more

Alexio Barboza’s Website.

Watch and listen to

Thanks to Ron Barboza for the research.