ABSTRACT
Cuban rap emerged in the early 1990s, a response to the rapid socio-economic changes resulting from the end of Soviet subsidies and the subsequent crisis known euphemistically as the "Special Period in a Time of Peace". Processes of cultural "nationalization" are carried out by human agents, not some kind of actorless hegemony. Rodolfo Rensoli, the founder of Grupo Uno who had organized the first rap festival in 1995, took the first step in the institutionalization of rap in 1997 when he approached Roberto Zurbano, then vice-president of the AHS, and proposed that the AHS collaborate in the organization of the festival. Pablo Herrera is Cuba's longest established and most prolific rap producer; Ariel Fernandez is the editor of the hip hop magazine Movimiento, having previously worked as rap promoter for the AHS, and he presents a weekly half-hour rap show on Havana's Radio Progreso.
