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Salsa Is More Than Salsa

How do human interactions and musical categories shape history?

Acto a Marti gathering at Club Cubano Inter-Americano with Machito playing the maracas
Acto a Marti gathering at Club Cubano Inter-Americano with Machito playing the maracas.

The New York Public Library

Different types of salsa music have existed across the years, like salsa romantica, salsa dura, salsa consciente, and salsa caliente, to name a few. There are also many types of music that make up salsa history, such as son, bomba, plena, bugalú, mambo, and more. Salsa dancing has many variations too, with different styles developed in New York, Cuba, Colombia, Los Angeles, and beyond.

These lists and details go on and on. Depending on the traditions, values, and experiences that people have, they might understand salsa to mean different things. Some people we might call salseros or sonatas wouldn’t even use the term “salsa” themselves. Tito Puente famously said "Yo sólo conozco una Salsa que venden en botella, llamada catsup. Yo toco música Cubana.” (I only know a Salsa sold in a bottle called ketchup. What I play is Cuban music.)

Even though Tito Puente called his music Cuban, others might call it mambo, salsa, or even Puerto Rican music. There are many debates and opinions about what makes salsa… salsa. Salsa is more than salsa: salsa is all of the connections and perspectives that bring people together to dance, sing, celebrate, and protest under the umbrella of salsa. Salsa is a complex mix of genres, cultures, and global interactions. To understand how salsa is more than salsa, read about these many variations of salsa, the commercial development of salsa in New York City, and a timeline of salsa through the decades.

Salsa Is Everything, Everywhere, All At Once

Genre

Categories help us understand the world. In music, genres are categories for certain musical, cultural, or social aspects that belong together. Genres can be defined through many aspects, however: geography, context, technique, style, and form can all be a part of identifying a genre. Genres are sometimes difficult to understand since people may not agree on what factors make up a genre. Salsa music is a genre that many people understand according to their own experiences, since the genres that created salsa also continued to exist and transform in their own ways.

For example, mambo is a genre of music, and so is salsa. Yet, many of their styles, traditions, or experiences are similar. These similarities lead many people to use mambo and salsa interchangeably. Others with different perspectives are specific in using the terms separately. Musical genres affect existing genres and create new genres, sometimes through combining and mixing throughout history. The genre of salsa arose through many genres from different cultures that came to connect, transform, and resist over the years.

Transculturation

People from different cultures come into contact with one another for many reasons, largely through migration. When these cultures interact, they often create new forms that are blends or transformations of many beliefs or practices. These can be seen in religion, art, language, and social customs. Transculturation is a part of the history of salsa. For example, musical cultures of enslaved Africans and their descendants interacted with European musical cultures throughout the Western hemisphere to create new forms of music. Transculturation is also a part of the story of the Latino communities in the United States. This is an important concept that helps us understand how salsa is from the intersections of Cuba, Puerto Rico, the United States, and beyond. Salsa grows out of a mix of transcultural interactions over generations of global contact.

Globalization

The world has become an increasingly interconnected place. As people sought opportunities for trade, they traveled around the world for goods, money, and culture. Developments in technology, such as transportation and financial institutions, made it easier for people to move and interact. Colonization and imperialism were major contributors to globalization. The economy of slavery, for example, was significant in connecting the Americas, Africa, and Europe. Even settled countries that eventually became independent were still dependent on dominant powers, meaning that global connections were here to stay.

People and nations have continued to exchange ideas, culture, and money. Salsa spread between the Caribbean and the United States to Latin America and to other corners of the globe as advances in technology and increasing migration made global connections easier, faster, and more consistent. In New York City, the popularity of Latin music and salsa were commercialized, helping it spread.

Commercializing Latin Music and Salsa

Salsa’s popularity and use as an umbrella term is largely due to the commercialization of Latin music. Before the creation of recording technology and wireless communication, it was harder for musical genres from around the world to come into contact with one another. People had to be physically together and create music live to share their own sounds. Inventions like the phonograph in 1877 and the radio in 1895 changed how the world engaged with sound. Explore some of Thomas Edison’s early sound recordings here.

In Cuba and Puerto Rico, phonograph companies recorded their first records in 1918 and radio stations broadcasted their first operations in 1922. Records and radio helped Caribbean music develop into salsa. Mass media made music more accessible to more people. This meant that musicians in Puerto Rico, Cuba, and New York City could exchange musical genres and styles with more ease. Yet, companies needed to make money off of these records. As a result, the music that appealed to consumer audiences became the music that people invested in. The popularity of music came to be defined through the music that sold the most records, concert tickets, or radio slots.

In New York City, Tin Pan Alley was a significant location for commercializing music. Located in Manhattan, five buildings on Tin Pan Alley were designated as New York Individual Landmarks in 2019. Tin Pan Alley’s business practices in the first half of the 20th century set the stage for popular music, copyright laws, and publishing norms in the United States. Record labels had to create reputations to attract talent that would sell. For Latin musicians, record labels like Riverside, Alegre, Tico, and RCA were responsible for representing their music on the commercial market.

The salsa boom of the 1970s was substantially influenced by the development of Fania Records. Fania was co-founded by Gerald “Jerry” Masucci and Johnny Pacheco in 1964 as a new record label that sought to treat its artists like a family. As Fania grew, it bought several independent Latin music labels like Alegre and Tico and expanded its markets beyond New York City. Fania eventually came to own a near-monopoly over Latin music.

Fania put together the Fania All-Stars, a group of top Latin musicians, who became widely popular after performing at the Cheetah club in 1971. Fania released Our Latin Thing in 1972, a film based on the previous year’s performance. Our Latin Thing conveyed a narrative that spoke to New York’s migrant Puerto Rican community and emphasized an urban Latino identity. The boom in popularity of salsa following Our Latin Thing led Fania to establish a marketing formula for salsa that depended on a recognizable image of star quality, Puerto Rican culture, and Latino community.

Fania Records played a large role in creating, circulating, and dominating salsa. The story of Fania shows how the economic factors of the music industry shaped salsa. Since music had to sell, salsa had to sell. Part of the reason salsa speaks to so many Latino people is that it was made to appeal to a community of people who enjoyed Latin music in New York, across the United States, and throughout Latin America. In this way, salsa is also an industry label that emerged out of the commercial need to manage music in a world with changing communities looking for connection.

A Brief Timeline of Salsa

Dive into the decades of salsa!

This article was researched and written by Hermán Luis Chávez, NCPE Intern, Cultural Resources Office of Interpretation and Education.

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Last updated: August 3, 2023