History of Salsa

*This page is a work in progress, and will be updated often as my knowledge and understanding of Salsa music & dance changes and grows.

I’m open to being corrected always! Please feel free to reach out if I have said something incorrect, or if you’d like to share your experience, opinion, or knowledge. I’d love to collaborate and amplify voices of Latinx people and/or folks who grew up with salsa as a part of their culture & history. *

Based on my research, Salsa’s influence starts as early as the 1500s with the Taino people, the native people of the Caribbean islands. The Taino people introduced their simple song structure as well as instruments such as rattles (like maracas) and güíras (scrapers) that are still used today in salsa music.

During the transatlantic slave trade(16th-19th centuries), spanish colonizers (booo) took enslaved African people to the Caribbean to work on plantations. They were forced to convert to christianity but able to preserve some of their heritage and culture through music and dance. with music & dance like the Rumba. Some people used code words in order to pray to gods of their own choosing. Enslaved african people brought with them to the americas african rhythms and the dance.

Many styles of afro-cuban music, including salsa, draws on rhythmic patterns from the Yoruba tribe who originated in parts of what is now Nigeria, Benin, Ghana, Togo and Cote d’Ivoire.

These rhythms blending with cuban music and the dance of danzón made Cuban Son, a style of afro-cuban music and dance. This is when the Clave starts to play a central and important part of afro-cuban music.

In the early 1920s radio broadcasting came to cuba. This also brought American’s to Cuba who were trying to escape prohibition laws, and allowed for exposure of American’s to Cuban music as well as Cuban’s to American music.

Mambo plays a big part in the development of salsa. Mambo was originally a section of Cuban danzón. Cuban bandleader Perez Prado brought Mambo to Mexico in the late 1940s and to NYC in 1951.

There are many influences to salsa dancing; Taino people, African people, Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Europeans, and more.

rumba, danzon, cuban son, mambo, chacha, salsa.

salsa