Pablo D. Herrera Veitia is an Afro-Cuban Hiphop producer who has also managed urban musicians and music-related projects in Cuba for over twenty years. He is arguably Cuba’s most influential beat-maker and a pioneer of the Cuban Hiphop sound, which is highly influenced by Afro-Cuban music and culture. To his credit as a cultural producer goes the coordination of the Black August Collective showcases in Havana. Black August has brought to Havana's International Hiphop Festival presentations by Mos Def and Talib Kweli’s Black Star, Hi-Tek, Dead Prez, Common, Tony Touch, and Project Blowed between 1998 and 2002. Pablo also helped coordinate The Roots concert in Havana, amongst other projects where he has acted as facilitator of culture between Cuba and a few other countries including the UK.

His writing has appeared in publications such as Cuba’s Revista Casa de las Americas, and more recently on OkayAfrica.com where he has developed the site’s current profile on Cuba. He has been a collaborator in several major academic research projects on rap and reggaeton music in Havana. Some of those projects include Sujatha Fernandez’s Cuba Represent and Close to the Edge; Tanya Saunders’s Cuban Underground Hiphop; Marc Perry’sNegro Soy Yo; and Geoff Baker’s Buena Vista In the Club. Currently, he is completing a PhD in Social Anthropology at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. His research focus is on the relationship between the sound of Afro-Cuban life, and Afro-Cuban citizenship in Havana. As the 2018-2019 Nasir Jones Fellow, he will present Hearing Afro-Cuban Rap, an exhibition of a collection of Afro-Cuban Rap tracks.

Celebrating Afro-Cuban Hiphop examines Afro-Cuban rap songs in Havana, Cuba, between 1994 and 2004. This event will combine a listening session of Habana Hip Hop Volumen2, a compilation of Afro-Cuban rap songs produced by Pablo Herrera in 2002, with a panel discussion on the music and how it relates to notions of Afro- Cubaneity, citizenship, gender, and Hiphop Culture within the context of Cuba during the said decade.