Salsa

Salsa music is very popular in Latin America and among Latinos abroad. Salsa has many styles and variations; it can be used to describe most any form of popular Cuban -derived genre, such as Cha-cha-cha and Mambo. Salsa is especially a style which developed in the 1960s and '70s when Cubans and Puerto Ricans moved to the New York City area. The style is now practiced throughout Latin America and abroad; in some countries it may be referred to as Música Tropical. Salsa's closest relatives are Cuban Mambo and the Son Orchestras of the early 20th century, as well as Latin jazz. Salsa is essentially Cuban in stylistic origin, though it is also a hybrid of Puerto Rican and other Latin styles mixed with pop, jazz, rock and R&B.

Salsa is a mixture of Spanish and African music, filtered through the music histories of Cuba and Puerto Rico and adapted by Latin jazz and Latin popular musicians for Latino populations with diverse musical tastes. Salsa bands play a wide variety of songs, including pieces based on plenas and bombas, cumbia, vallenato and merengue; most songs, however, are modern versions of the Cuban son. Like the Son, Salsa songs begin with a songlike section followed by a montuno break with call-and-response vocals, instrumental breaks and jazzy solos. In the United States, the music of a Salsa club is a mix of Salsa, Merengue, Cha-cha-cha and Bachata, whether sourced from a live band or a DJ. Some salsa clubs also add Reggaeton to the mix due to its popularity with youth.

Percussion is most important in Salsa, which is by a wide variety of instruments, including claves, cowbells, timbales and conga. Apart from percussion, a variety of other instruments are used, such as guitar, trumpets, trombones, the piano and many others, all depending on the performing artists. Salsa bands usually consist of up to a dozen people, one of whom serves as band leader, directing the music as it is played. Two to four players generally specialize in horns, while there are generally one or two choral singers and players of the bongo, conga, bass guitar, piano and timbales. The maracas, clave or güiro may also be played, often by a vocalist. The bongocero will usually switch to a kind of bell called a campana (or bongo bell) for the montuno section of a song. Horns are typically either two trumpets or four trumpets or, most commonly, two trumpets with at least one saxophone or trombone.

Salsa essentially remains a form of dance music, which means that the songs have no special lyrics. Modern pop-salsa is often romántica, defined partially by the sentimental, lovelorn lyrics, or erótica, defined largely by the sexually explicit lyrics. Salsa also has a long tradition of lyrical experimentation, with singer-songwriters like Rubén Blades using incisive lyrics about everything from imperialism to disarmament and environmentalism. Vocalists are expected to be able to improvise during verses and instrumental solos. References to Afro-Catholic religions, such as Santería, are also a major part of salsa's lyrics throughout Latin America, even among those artists who are not themselves practitioners of any Afro-Catholic religion.