I am not sure what you mean by a "soloist"--Do you mean soloists in the ensemble? Or do you mean soloists as in an unaccompanied singer?

Within the ensemble,there are instrumental soloists, with particular emphasis on percussion solos, and the vocalist often sings as a solo-in fact, you could say that in a way, each player is a soloist, because the music is polyrhythmic, which means that it is a fabric of interwoven and overlayed rhythmic phrases, and each player has a part, which can be played alone, in unison, against, or in a call and response pattern with the others.

Lyrically, in Cuban music, it seems that everyone is a poet, with their own poems that fit to familiar musical patterns, and even their own verses to familiar and traditional songs--and there is a strong tradtion of the poet as a singer, self-accompanied.

However, the music and the culture value ensemble performance, and there is a feeling that the poet's expressions are even better when a brother plays another guitar, and perhaps sings a harmony, and several cousins add percussion, perhaps the neighbors play horns, and of course, no poetry is ever complete unless everyone else dances--