Cuba’s hip-hop scene is the subject of an upcoming presentation by UO graduate music student Charlie Hankin, who earlier visited the island nation to interview some of its emerging artists.

Hankin will discuss his work on an oral history of hip-hop lyrics in Cuba in “Havana Hip Hop” at 3:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 23, in the Oak Room of the Erb Memorial Union. It is free and open to the public.

Hankin received a research grant from the Center for Latino/a and Latin American Studies to pursue his research on hip-hop lyrics as a way to look at race and identity in Cuba and around the world. During a visit to Cuba for the International Hip Hop Festival in August, he arranged interviews with a number of young writers, artists and intellectuals as part of his research.

He focused on a group called Los Aldeanos, which was a headliner at the festival in 2013 and was touted as part of Cuba’s “rap vanguard” in 2006.

Earlier this year, Hankin was awarded a 2014-15 Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship in Brazil. He hopes to combing teaching, music performance and research while teaching musicality and violin to Brazilian elementary and high school students and English to university students.