salsa

Salsa is the great dance music of the Hispanic Caribbean — a sound built mainly from Cuban and Puerto Rican traditions, with contributions from the Dominican Republic, Colombia, Venezuela and beyond, where African, European and Indigenous influences fuse into one irresistible groove.

Most of its building blocks predate the label: salsa draws above all on son montuno and son cubano, folding in cha-cha-chá, bolero, rumba, mambo, merengue and a heavy dose of jazz and R&B. Though its roots are Cuban, the style as we know it was forged largely by Puerto Rican, Cuban and Dominican musicians in 1970s New York.

In this directory salsa runs from the Fania era — the Fania All-Stars, Celia Cruz, Héctor Lavoe, Willie Colón and Rubén Blades — to later torch-bearers like El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico, Gilberto Santa Rosa and Marc Anthony.