It is Cuba’s mixing of African rhythms together with guitars, melodies and lyricism from Spain that gave birth to Cuba’s wealth of music and dance, and the reason the genre is usually referred to as Afro-Cuban.

Styles / Genres:

Since music and dance have always been a way of life in Cuba, all the dance and music styles and their various evolutionary counterparts would fill a book.

In the urban centers, contradanza, based on the French, salon style contredanse, evolved into the still popular danzon. Urban street music, influenced by African religious rituals, Christian religious carnivals and Caribbean carnival music similar to Brazil’s samba mixed together and gave birth to rumba (not to be confused with the rhumba) and the conga.

Musica Campensina:

The music of the countryside, known collectively as musica campensina, gave rise to guajira, the lyrical, sweet musical form that extols the virtues of the land and Cuba’s beauty.

The trova, another rural style of music from the eastern part of the island, dispersed news and gossip, often through satire. The Cuban bolero, evolving from the trova, is the epitome of the romantic love song. And finally, reflecting influences of all of these earlier musical styles is the heart of Cuban music, the son.

Migration North:

As waves of immigrants migrated north to the U.S., Cuban music fused with other musical formats in the urban centers. In the mid-twentieth century, new, popular musical styles were born from this fusion giving us the mambo, cha cha cha and, of course, salsa.

Today:

It’s difficult to say who “invented” some of the popular Cuban inspired musical forms, combination of instruments, evolved rhythms and dances. Does salsa come from Cuba or New York? Does Latin jazz owe more to Cuban musical traditions or those of New Orleans? Maybe the answer isn’t really important. As the world becomes a global village, Latin music continues to evolve and reflect the global heartbeat.