Pedrito Martinez Group

Concert Details

Pedro Pablo “Pedrito” Martinez was born in Havana, Cuba, where he began his musical career at the age of 11 with a deep foundation in the rumba and Afro-Cuban Yorùbá traditions. Martinez has recorded and performed with Wynton Marsalis, Paul Simon, Chucho Valdés, Bruce Springsteen, Elton John, James Taylor, Sting, and more, and he has contributed to more than 100 albums. A consummate master of Afro-Cuban folkloric music and the batá drum, Martinez is the world’s first-call rumbero—playing, singing, and dancing with dozens of Cuban rumba groups and contributing to several important films.

Martinez was a founding member of the Afro-Cuban Afrobeat band Yerba Buena, with which he recorded two albums and toured the world in the mid- to late 1990s. His career as a leader began in 2005 with the formation of the Pedrito Martinez Group. Its debut album was nominated for a Grammy in 2013 and was among NPR’s favorite albums of that year.