Latin Music - An Introduction to Latin Music

Trying to define Latin music is like trying to catch a prism of light in a basket. You can look in the basket and see the colors there, but the moment you move, they’re gone.

Geography:

Geographically, it encompasses the music of

• South America
• Central America
• Mexico
• Cuba
• Puerto Rico
• Dominican Republic
• Spain
• Portugal
• Cape Verde and the Canary Islands

But it’s not that simple. Because wherever Hispanic people have gathered they’ve taken their music with them, and their music has changed with their surroundings. Which means we would need to add Miami, New York, Texas and California to the list, and we’d be sure to miss some.

Language:

We could try to define Latin music in terms of language, by saying it’s music sung in Spanish. Oh wait, there’s Brazil and Portugal, so let’s amend that to Spanish and Portuguese.

But it’s not that simple. Because, for starters, that approach would exclude all the great salsa and regional music coming out of English speaking urban centers.

Genres:

How about genres? If we try to define Latin music as

• salsa
• tango
• son
• cumbia
• bossa nova
• samba
• vallenato
• mambo
• rumba
• guajira
• bomba
• plena
• merengue
• tejano
• ranchera

would that be any easier? Well, then what would we do with Latin rap and hip-hop? How about Latin pop? And lets not forget jazz.

What we can do is take a look at the core music by country of origin, talk a little bit about the forms, genres and artists that made and continue to make their music great. We’ll offer you suggestions about the best music to listen to while making friends with some of these neighbors. Finally, we’ll spend a little time talking about the wonderful, colorful new music coming out of today’s urban centers.

Hopefully it will be better than “You’ll know it when you hear it.” Although, you will know it when you hear it. And you'll love it.