Cuban Underground Hip Hop: Black Thoughts, Black Revolution

Join us for a book talk and reception on Tanya Saunders new book, Cuban Underground Hip Hop: Black Thoughts, Black Revolution, Black Modernity (University of Texas, 2015),  focusing on a group of self-described antiracist, revolutionary youth who initiated a social movement (1996–2006) to educate and fight against these inequalities through the use of arts-based political activism intended to spur debate and enact social change. Their “revolution” was manifest in altering individual and collective consciousness by critiquing nearly all aspects of social and economic life tied to colonial legacies.

Using over a decade of research and interviews with those directly involved, Tanya Saunders, assistant professor, African American and African Studies, traces the history of the movement from its inception and the national and international debates that it spawned to the exodus of these activists/artists from Cuba and the creative vacuum they left behind. Shedding light on identity politics, race, sexuality, and gender in Cuba and the Americas, Cuban Underground Hip Hop is a valuable case study of a social movement that is a part of Cuba’s longer historical process of decolonization.