Cuban Music Influence

This article brilliantly describes the calendar year 1898 as being a significantly important year culturally for Cuba and its then state of music. Described by Acosta as “a symbol of a generation of intellectuals”¹, there was a musical abundance in Cuba that seemed to have attracted the world once the U.S. began to notice. Cuba quickly became an honored destination for blended genres that drew various inspirations from Europe and Africa—where Cuba would then distribute to the U.S. and further solidify their influence. One thing I analyzed from this reading was the how central Caribbean music became for North American recording companies. The paradigm began to shift in the early 1900’s where record companies were no longer just praising Cuban artist in admiration, but began to—either travel to Caribbean countries in order to record with these musicians and provide them with portable equipment or actually giving appointed musicians opportunities to record in the U.S. It’s really interesting to point out the motives behind these clear agendas to “Latinize” the American entertainment culture so early in the 20th century …show more content…
Cuban music continued its dominant influence through ebbs and flows from 1920’s-1930’s and throughout the 1940’s-1950’s. Within the span of these thirty years of music came the births of such genres as the bolero, son, rumba, and the conga the (mainly) Cuban composers who were credited with these genres became extremely popular musicians among a wide spectrum of social sectors from all across the U.S. These waves of wildly successful movements are credited with sparking other powerful musical movements. For example, the mambo (an Afro-Cuban jazz genre) became a unique cross-cultural musical movement that many today credit for cementing the universalization of Caribbean influence in pop