Cuban Music

Cuban music is the body of popular and folk idioms created on the island from the fusion of Spanish song and guitar traditions with West and Central African rhythm and percussion. Its engine is clave, the five-stroke pattern organising son cubano, danzón, bolero, mambo, rumba and their descendants, played by ensembles of tres, guitar, bongó, congas, timbales and brass. Codified by figures such as *Arsenio Rodríguez*, *Benny Moré* and *Orquesta Aragón*, exported worldwide from the 1930s, and renewed by timba and the *Buena Vista Social Club* revival, it underpins much of Latin popular music.