In the beginning hip hop was viewed with suspicion, not just by the government, but by many in the community as well. With raperos emulating US rappers' aggressive posturing and lyrical content, hip hop was seen as just another cultural invasion from the US, bringing with it the violence and problems of the ghettos

The importation and the birth of Cuban rap could be debatable, but many argue that the importation of U.S rap and its influence was brought from Miami. Rap hit Cuba approximately quarter century ago but it was not imported to Cuba until 1990s after the fall of the Soviet Union. However it existed among young moneros, who had a tremendous oral ability and linguistic creativity. At the beginning of establishing Rap in Cuba rap like rock was perceived as a foreign import and while it was never forbidden, neither was it promoted or encouraged” The Cuban government changed its perceptions about hip-hop during 1999 when it declared it as an authentic expression of Cuban Culture. In addition the government formed the Agencia Cubana de Rap (The Cuban Rap Agency) that provides state-run record label and hip-hop magazine, and began supporting the annual Cuban Hip Hop festival. Cuban rappers injected a renovating energy into Cuban music that was taken from hip hop culture. Rap in Cuba began to emerge precisely during the gangsta rap period in the United States which included artists like 2Pac, Notorious B.I.G, Ice-T, Snoop Dogg and many more influential gangster rappers.

Gradually this began to change as raperos began to express their own reality and make use of traditional Cuban culture. One sentiment expressed involved how Cuban politics were not keeping pace with social reality. All Cubans are discouraged from visiting government-designated 'tourist zones,' such as the fancy restaurants and night clubs in Old Havana, and police will ask most who show up there for ID. But statistics show that the police arrest Afrocubans all over the island more often than Whites. Many Afrocubans say the government assumes Blacks are more likely to be involved in criminal activity. This exclusion from night life led to the importance of house parties where raperos were able to establish their own "underground" hip hop scene. The financial constraints of tourist geared night clubs that only accept dollars or venues that cost up to the equivalent of a standard monthly Cuban salary for entry also aided in the significance of house parties in the Cuban hip hop scene.

The small, underground gatherings or house parties were referred to as bonches. The bonches were for the true hip-hop fans who were into the less accessible rap in Cuba. "These bonches can be considered the seeds of today's Cuban rap community." As bonches gained popularity, they became too large for private homes, so aspiring DJ Adalberto Jimenez found a public space in Havana, which he called La Mona. The venue did charge a small fee, but it stayed more of a social than commercial club, remaining loyal to the underground scene. Many moneros were interested in creating their own rap, but lack of equipment prevented the formation of professional Cuban hip hop groups until the establishment of the Havana Hip Hop Festival.

In 1995, a group of rappers organized a Hip-hop festival. The annual Hip Hop festival consisted of 50 Cuban and 12 foreign groups: Mos Def and The Roots have supported the event as well as many others. As Hip-hop became more popular, it reached the youth of Cuba and many other countries. As a result, several thousand people globally have attended the festival in previous years.

In the mid 1990s, the music scene was one of the most promising for Cubans to meet tourists and gain possible access to much needed hard currency. Hip-hop developed new dance moves involving the 'solo' female body: the despelote (all-over-the-place) and tembleque (shake-shudder) and the subasta de la cintura (waist auction). These moves define a solo female dance style which involves fast movement and turning/swirling of the area from below shoulders and chest to pelvis (as if one was hula hoop-ing or belly dancing). Often accompanied by hand and body gestures mimicking self pleasuring, it constituted a noticeable change in dance style, of women dancing to be 'looked at' both by their partners, by other prospective partners, and by other spectators, using their body as a major asset. This was in contrast to traditional dancing such as normative couple dancing.

Start of a Cuban scene

The change in both attitude towards hip hop and the move towards home grown expression was in part facilitated by the involvement of Nehanda Abioduna U.S. Black Liberation Army activist in political exile in Cuba. The U.S. is the birth place of hip-hop, so of course played a major role in the birth of hip-hip in Cuba. U.S. hip-hop artists continue to be hip-hop's most important innovators and are very influential to Cuban rappers. Cuban rappers admire the success of U.S. rappers and desire to achieve the same amount of success, so they begin to model themselves after them.

Hip hop's transfer to Alamar (the birthplace of rap cubano), a suburb east of Havana (with the best radio reception to Miami radio stations 99 JAMS and HOT 105), was so successful that in 1995 Rodolfo Renzoli, a rapper from Alamar's original hip hop collective, Grupo Uno, organized Cuba's first hip hop festival with the aid of the Asociación de Hermanos Sais(AHS). Despite poor promotion and the remote location, the first festival, organized as a friendly competition among the growing group of rap artists in and around Havana, became a huge success with moneros' and 'raperos'. 'Rap cubano emerged as a distinct genre when Amenaza (now known internationally as the Orishas - France, EMI) incorporated Afro-Cuban bata percussion into their performance at the 1996 festival, winning them first place in the competition. The same year, Cuba's first all-female rap group, Instinto, secured second place for their energetically-charged rap flow and performance. By 1999, through the aid of the Hip Hop Manifesto (written by DJ Ariel Fernandez), rap cubano and rock music (another marginalized musical genre in Cuba) was declared "an authentic expression of Cuban culture" by Abel Prieto, Cuba's Minister of Culture. Fidel Castro deemed hip hop music to be at the "vanguard of the Revolution" because of its revolutionary message. This resulted in the formation of the Agencia Cubana de Rap (The Cuban Rap Agency). The Agencia Cubana de Rap is the state's organization that runs a record label and hip hop magazine, Movimiento.

Upset with what she saw as blind imitation of commercial US rap culture with its depiction of thug life, violence, and misogyny, Abiodun began working with the Malcom X Grassroots Movement in the US to bring progressive US hip hop artists to Cuba This led to the Black August benefit concerts held in New York and Havana