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Essay on The Latin Music Known As Salsa
Since Columbus "discovered" America and the slave trade began, music has always been a very important part of the Cuban culture. Cuba's strategic position in the Caribbean made it a real crossroad for all the trades between Central and North America and for most of the incoming slave ships from Africa. Cuba became a "sponge" that absorbed and processed all the surrounding music influences and all the incoming African rhythms and melodies.
Since those days the music has mutated many times and through out the years one genres of music gave birth to new ones one of the most resent of those mutations has been called Salsa.
The history of salsa is no only limited to Cuba but it extends to Puerto Rico and New York. In the last few years salsa has reached even the most unthinkable places of the world. Since Columbus came to America and brought with him the colonization of Las Americas, music has been a rich part of Cuban culture (Parsons, 1995).
When Spanish colonists started the trade of African slaves, the history of salsa music began.
Given to Cuba's crossroad position between North America, South America, the Old World and the New World most of the slave trading that occurred in the New World was done in Cuba. As consequence of this Cuba basically absorbed the cultures and religions from surrounding islands in the Caribbean and all the traditions and music that came from Africa.
The real development of salsa music genre came from a series of music mutations when in the late 1800 the guaguanco or Santeria music started to make its way out from the sugar plantations to rural peoples life's and then to the cities. The first music style that had its roots....
