Salsa

While it has broad popular appeal, an instantly recognizable sound, world-famous performers, and is the subject of sundry books, articles, and movies, the music called “salsa” is, nonetheless, remarkably difficult to define or even to describe. Much that makes salsa meaningful as a musical category—including the origins and meaning of its name, the significance of its Afro-Cuban roots, the importance of Latin and especially Puerto Rican New York to its emergence, and its role as a symbol of ethnic or national identity—turns out to be hotly debated and often contested by its fans and musicians, not to mention the various scholars and journalists whose written work is cited and summarized here. We know that the use of the term “salsa” (literally “sauce”) as a marketing label first became widespread in 1970s when it was applied to a new brand of Cuban son-inspired dance music taken up predominantly by Puerto Ricans living in New York’s hardscrabble East Harlem, also known as Spanish Harlem or “El Barrio.” That the term gained popularity only after fulfilling its function as a marketing tool for music that had clear Cuban roots is a key question that few authors fail to address—namely, whether salsa is merely a rebranded version of Cuban music or is, in reality, a new musical form that owes its provenance to the efforts of Nuyoricans, Puerto Rican New Yorkers. That many salsa performers of note including Tito Puente, Celia Cruz, and Rubén Blades have credited Cuba as the source of the music they played has unquestionably solidified the position of the Cuba camp. At the same time, many scholars have argued that salsa is different from Cuban son. This is particularly true with regard to the subject and message of salsa’s lyrics, the breadth of the musical genres on which it draws, and the social context of Latin Americans in New York City, all factors that, scholars sustain, underpin the features of salsa that are fresh, innovative, and so passionately loved by its creators and fans. The intense Cuban-or-Puerto Rican origins debate notwithstanding, some contemporary salsa scholarship has focused on the ways in which the genre has become a representative music of Latin Americans of diverse national, ethnic, and social backgrounds. These studies have examined salsa practices and performance scenes in places far removed from New York City such as Colombia, Mexico, Spain, and even as far afield as Japan, all of which has expanded our understanding of the various meanings attributed to salsa as it has spread internationally and into increasingly diverse social and cultural settings. This list of resources presents a full picture of the various positions articulated in the debate described here as well as the different theoretical foci taken up by salsa scholars, historians, and writers.

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