Pedrito Martinez

Pedrito Martinez is a Cuban percussionist, singer, dancer, and lyricist, born and raised in Havana, Cuba. A Cuban conguero, he plays classic Cuban rumba and Afro-Cuban folkloric and religious music; he is a santería priest. He arrived in the United States from Havana in 1998 and plays the batá drum, conga, cajón, timbales, and bongos, among other percussion instruments, a craft learned in the streets of Havana. He has performed with Paquito D'Rivera, Arturo O'Farrill, Brian Lynch, and Bruce Springsteen, and settled in the New York/New Jersey area in 1998.

He is a founding member of the band Yerba Buena, with whom he recorded two albums: President Alien in 2003, and Island Life in 2005, which reached No. 62 on the Billboard Top Latin Albums Chart. He is also part of the Nuevo Jazz Latino program at Jazz at Lincoln Center.

Martinez became the leader of the Pedrito Martinez Group in 2005. The band's debut album, The Pedrito Martinez Group, came out in 2013, featuring Wynton Marsalis, John Scofield, and Steve Gadd as guests. On his 2016 album, Habana Dreams, the guests are Wynton Marsalis, Ruben Blades, Angélique Kidjo, and Issac Delgado.