From the Streets to the Nightclub: Rumberas as Salsa Precursors

Abstract

Long before the word salsa came to refer to music, there was son, and alongside son there was rumba. While there is consensus that Cuban son is a major contributor to salsa, setting the underlying rhythm, rumba is left out of the equation or merely referenced lexically in the occasional song title. Connections between son and rumba are only now being acknowledged, as Acosta writes: “I could not decide between the rumba and the son as the most emblematic genre of our popular music: Now I look at them as more or less two sides of the same coin.” He goes on to state, Son has shown the necessary strength and flexibility to permeate other genres: danzón, bolero, mambo, chachachá, and the whole phenomenon of salsa music. Nevertheless, the elasticity and dynamism of rumba has allowed it to permeate son since the 1920s… and 1930s… as well as its more recent tendencies: mambo, salsa, songo, timba, etc.¹