Salsa music is a fusion of traditional African and Cuban and other Latin-American rhythms that traveled from the islands (Cuba and Puerto Rico) to New York during the migration, somewhere between the 1940s and the 1970s, depending on where one puts the boundary between "real" salsa and its predecessors. There is debate as to whether Salsa originated in Cuba or Puerto Rico. Then again, it is a debate, and there is the possibility that it could have originated in both places or only one. Salsa is one of the main dances in both Cuba and Puerto Rico and is known world-wide. The dance steps currently being danced to salsa music come from the Cuban son, but were influenced by many other Cuban dances such as Mambo, Chá Cha Cha, Guaracha, Changuí, Lukumí, Palo Monte, Rumba, Yambú, Abakuá, Comparsa and some times even Mozambique. It also integrates swing dances.

The music spread rapidly with the large migration of Cuban and Puerto Rican people to America since 1959. Many famous musicians, among them Tito Puente, Tito Rodriguez, Celia Cruz & Mongo Santamaria began to play at well-known venues in New York, such as the Palladium, establishing Salsa in the United States. More recently the music migrated to Europe. With the expanding Latin American population in London there is now a thriving Salsa scene, with many Clubs and bands involved in it.

Is the most popular and fashionable form of Latin dance at the moment.

Essentially Cuban in Origin, Salsa originated in the 1920's from an unlikely mixture of African Rhythms and the melodies of the Spanish Colonies. This was called "Son", which together with other Cuban rhythms like Rumba and Danzon, merged to create a rich four-beat musical style. In the 1950's, Jazz, Blues and other Black American rhythms begun to influence Salsa. At this time, horns such as the trombone, trumpet and saxophone were introduced giving the music its rich distinctive sound.

Other Latin rhythms such as Mambo were incorporated into the Salsa musical structure; this was reflected in the dance, creating faster and more complex footwork with more twists and turns, giving birth to the extremely stylish dance we know today as "Salsa".

The music spread rapidly with the large migration of Cuban and Puerto Rican people to America since 1959. Many famous musicians, among them Tito Puente, Tito Rodriguez, Celia Cruz & Mongo Santamaria began to play at well-known venues in New York, such as the Palladium, establishing Salsa in the United States.

More recently the music migrated to Europe. With the expanding Latin American population in London there is now a thriving Salsa scene, with many Clubs and bands involved in it.

Rumba is a style of Afrocuban music and dance, which has its roots deep in West Africa. It evolved in the dockyards of Havana in Cuba, in the mid 19th century. Nowadays, Rumba is operating a come-back, in Salsa music and Dance, around the world. It is being adopted by leading Salsa dancers as a "must" in any good Salsa dance routine. There are many forms of Rumba such as "Rumba Yambu", "Rumba Columbia", and "Rumba Guaguanco". Rumba Guaguanco is a flirtatious rumba partner dance where the man pursues and the woman entices. The word Rumba is a generic term, covering a variety of names (i.e., Son, Danzon, Guagira, Guaracha, Naningo), for a type of West Indian music or dancing. The exact meaning varies from island to island. There are two sources of the dances: one Spanish and the other African. Although the main growth was in Cuba, there were similar dance developments which took place in other Caribbean islands and in Latin America generally. The "rumba influence" came in the 16th century with the black slaves imported from Africa. The native Rumba folk dance is essentially a sex pantomime danced extremely fast with exaggerated hip movements and with a sensually aggressive attitude on the part of the man and a defensive attitude on the part of the woman. The music is played with a staccato beat in keeping with the vigorous expressive movements of the dancers. Accompanying instruments include the maracas, the claves, the marimbola, and the drums.

As recently as the second world war, the "Son" was the popular dance of middle class Cuba. It is a modified slower and more refined version of the native Rumba. Still slower is the "Danzon", the dance of wealthy Cuban society. Very small steps are taken, with the women producing a very subtle tilting of the hips by alternately bending and straightening the knees.

The American Rumba is a modified version of the "Son". The first serious attempt to introduce the rumba to the United States was by Lew Quinn and Joan Sawyer in 1913. Ten years later band leader Emil Coleman imported some rumba musicians and a pair of rumba dancers to New York. In 1925 Benito Collada opened the Club El Chico in Greenwich Village and found that New Yorkers did not know what Rumba was all about. Real interest in Latin music began about 1929. In the late 1920's, Xavier Cugat formed an orchestra that specialized in Latin American music. He opened at the Coconut Grove in Los Angeles and appeared in early sound movies such as "In Gay Madrid". Later in the 1930's, Cugat played at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York. By the end of the decade he was recognized as having the outstanding Latin orchestra of the day.

In 1935, George Raft played the part of a suave dancer in the movie "Rumba", a rather superficial musical in which the hero finally won the heiress (Carol Lombard) through the mutual love of dancing. In Europe, the introduction of Latin American dancing (Rumba in particular) owed much to the enthusiasm and interpretive ability of Monsieur Pierre (London's leading teacher in this dance form). In the 1930's with his partner, Doris Lavelle, he demonstrated and popularized Latin American dancing in London. Pierre and Lavelle introduced the true "Cuban Rumba" which was finally established after much argument, as the official recognized version in 1955.

In it`s traditional form, merengue is played on accordeon, saxophone, box bass with metal plucked keys, a guayano (a metal scraper -transformed from a kitchen implement), and a two ended tambora drum, struck with hand and stick. It's rural music with close affinities to Haitian méringue - though the latter, sung in Creole, tends to have a slower, more nostalgic sound, based on guitar rather than accordeon.

In the Dominican Republic, merengue experienced something of a golden age during the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo, who held power from the 1930s until his assassination in 1961. Trujillo was from peasent roots and he promoted the music as a symbol of national expression and the culture of the former underclass. He constrained its traditional role as a music of social commentary but provided a forum for the musicians in the dancehalls.

Larger merengue orchestras were developed, with piano and brass to cater these new urban audiences.

The music that today is called bachata emerged from and belongs to a long-standin Pan-Latin American tradition of guitar music, música de guitarra, which was typically played by trios or quartets comprised of one or two guitars (or other related stringed instrument such as the smaller requito), with percussion provided by maracas and/or other instruments such as claves (hardwood sticks used for percussion), bongo drums, or a gourd güiro scraper. Sometimes a large thumb bass called marimba or marimbula was included as well. When bachata emerged in the early 1960s, it was part of an important subcategory of guitar music, romantic guitar music -as distinguished from guitar music intended primarily for dancing such as the Cuban son or guaracha- although in later decades, as musicians began speeding up the rhythm and dancers developed a new dance step, bachata began to be considered dance music as well. The most popular and widespread genre of romantic guitar music in this century, and the most influential for the development of bachata, was the Cuban bolero (not to be confused with the unrelated Spanish bolero). Bachata musicians, however, also drew upon other genres of música de guitarra that accomplished guitarists would be familiar with, including Mexican rancheros and corridos, Cuban son, guaracha and guajira, Puerto Rican plena and jibaro music, and the Colombian-Ecuadorian vals campesino and pasillo- as well as the Dominican merengue, which was originally guitar-based.