Gene Perry has been an important force in Afro-Cuban and Puerto Rican music in San Diego since his arrival in 1968. Gene was born and raised in Santurce, a barrio in San Juan, Puerto Rico renown for its rich Afro-Puerto Rican heritage and musical traditions. Gene is an expert of the Puerto Rican bomba and plena genres, as well as a variety of Afro-Cuban and Latin American styles. Gene formed the Latin jazz and salsa group Afro Rumba in the summer of 1983, a perennial San Diego favorite. Along with another Perry project, Quarteto Agape, Afro-Rumba has provided some of the city’s best Latin jazz and traditional salsa music. Gene has shared the stage with a variety of performers, including Latin jazz legends Tito Puente, Eddie Palmieri, Poncho Sanchez, and Eddie Cano, as well as world music artists Marie and Anita Daulne of Zap Mama, the Afro-Peruvian folklore troupe Perú Negro, Zimbabwean music icon Thomas Mapfumo, Malian Habib Koite, Vusi “The Voice” Mahlasela from South Africa, among many others. A versatile and in-demand percussionist, Perry has also performed in a variety of local settings, including innumerable performances over the years with a variety of mainstay artists from San Diego’s jazz and Latin music scene, as well as klezmer music, and a variety of dramatic plays. Gene has also given lecture-demonstrations on Puerto Rican music at the University of California, San Diego, and at SDSU.