Pablo Herrera (DJ/Producer)

Pablo Herrera is one of Cuba's most well known and influential hip-hop and rap DJ/Producers. He is also a keyboardist, poet, manager, promoter, and all-around hip-hop scholar and advocate. Additionally, along with former black power activist Nehanda Abiodun, Herrera is a founding member of the Havana wing of Black August, a grassroots movement inspired by the teachings of Malcolm X that helps to promote social justice and political awareness through hip-hop culture [ [http://www.exclaim.ca/articles/research.aspx?csid1=67 The Elements of Revolution ] ] .

Career

Pablo Herrera earned a degree in English and Russian translation and wrote a thesis on African American means of expression. He taught many courses at the University of Havana and it was while teaching about hip-hop there that he started working with artists, getting them to move to a higher level [ http://www.afrocubaweb.com/rap/pabloherrera.htm. ] . Not only does he produce music for, manage, and promote his acts, he also (with the help of the Young Communist Party, of which he is an associate) organizes weekly hip-hop shows at various clubs throughout Havana Wunderlich, Annalise. "Cuban Hip-hop: Making Space for New Voices of Dissent." In The Vinyl Ain't Final: Hip Hop and the Globalization of Black Popular Culture, ed. by Dipannita Basu and Sidney J. Lemelle, pgs. 167-79. London; Ann Arbor, MI: Pluto Press, 2006 ] . He has worked with and helped promote a number of different Cuban hip-hop/rap artists throughout the years. These include Amenaza, now known as Orishas, a group that Herrera created in the early 1990s and have since become the one of the only Cuban rap groups to sign with a major (although foreign) label . Additional important Cuban hip-hop artists that Herrera has worked with include Obsesion, Anónimo consejo, Instincto, any many others.

Impact

Herrera's influence on hip-hop in Cuba has been tremendous. Along with the work that he has done with various artists, in a way he is responsible for shaping the current attitudes regarding rap music and hip-hop culture. Herrera campaigned to show state leaders that hip-hop had become an outlet for many young Cubans to express themselves and demonstrated how it could play a significant role in the revolution. Thanks to the work of Herrera and other hip-hop disciples, the Cuban government now sees rap music--long considered the music of American imperialism--as a road map to the hearts and minds of the young generation [ Ibid. ] . The state now supports the local hip-hop movement, mostly through providing funding for festivals and equipment. Likewise, many rappers that have worked with Herrera have supported the state by writing lyrics that are socially conscious and embrace revolutionary elements and socialist ideology, themes that have come to define Cuba's underground hip-hop scene.

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