Enrique Pla is a man of few words but of a very musical ear. Since he was just a kid, he picked up on the melodies produced from his sister’s piano, and very soon earned the nickname "little drummer boy," because he would improvise on that instrument for hours on end. He invented his own unique drum to begin his journey through the world of music, that of Cuban percussion.

After stints with different bands in his home province of Santa Clara, he made it into the Cuban Modern Music group and the National Symphonic Orchestra. Later when the band Irakare was founded, Pla was the drummer, with the rich polyrhythmic sound of Cuban percussion instrumentation and mixed it with sonorities typical of jazz and rock. Along with other percussionists in the group, he made the batá and arará drums give a new expression to Latin jazz.