Cuban Traditional Music: Iklas Kader Zihad
Cuba is a country with a palpable rhythm. Music and dance are the heart and soul of the island. It’s an energetic mix of soulful Spanish melodies, lyrical traditions, and dynamic African percussion and beats. The Caribbean island of Cuba has been influential in the development of multiple musical styles in the 19th and 20 centuries. The roots of most Cuban musical forms lie in the cabildos, a form of a social club among African slaves brought to the island. Cabildos preserved African cultural traditions, even after the Emancipation in 1886 forced them to unite with the Roman Catholic church. At the same time, a religion called Santería was developing and had soon spread throughout Cuba, Haiti, and other nearby islands. Santería influenced Cuba's music, as percussion is an inherent part of the religion.
Cuban music has its principal roots in Spain and West Africa, but over time has been influenced by diverse genres from different countries. Most important among these are France, the United States, and Jamaica. Reciprocally, Cuban music has been immensely influential in other countries, contributing not only to the development of jazz and salsa, but also to Argentinian tango, Ghanaian high-life, West African Afrobeat, and Spanish "nuevo flamenco".
FOLK MUSIC
The natives of Cuba were the Taíno, Arawak, and Ciboney people, known for a style of music called Areito. Large numbers of African slaves and European immigrants brought their own forms of music to the island. European dances and folk musics included zapateo, fandango, zampado, retambico and canción. Later, northern European forms like waltz, minuet, gavotte, and mazurka appeared among urban whites.
Fernando Ortíz, a Cuban folklorist, described Cuba's musical innovations as arising from the interplay between African slaves settled on large sugar plantations and Spanish or Canary Islanders who grew tobacco on small farms. The African slaves and their descendants reconstructed large numbers of percussive instruments and corresponding rhythms, the most important instruments being the clave, the congas, and batá drums. Chinese immigrants have contributed the cornetín chino ("Chinese cornet"), a Chinese wind instrument still played in the Comparsas, or carnival groups, of Santiago de Cuba.
GUAJIRA
The original guajira was earthy, strident rural acoustic music, possibly related to Puerto Rican jibaro. It appeared in the early 20th century and is led by a 12-string guitar called a tres, known for its distinctive tuning.
MÚSICA CAMPESINA
Música Campesina is a rural form of improvised music derived from a local form of décima and verso called punto. It has been popularized by artists like Celina González, and has become an important influence on modern son. While remaining mainly unchanged in its forms (thus provoking a steady decline in interest among the Cuban youth), some artists have tried to renew Música Campesina with new styles, lyrics, themes, and arrangements.
DANZÓN
The European influence on Cuba's later musical development is most influentially represented by danzón, which is an elegant dance that became established in Cuba before being exported to popular acclaim throughout Latin America, especially Mexico. Danzón is the official music and dance of Cuba and dates back to the late 1800s. Danzón isn’t just an important root of music and dance in Cuban culture – it’s an important basis for world music in general. Its roots lay in European ballroom dances like the English country dance, French contredanse, and Spanish contradanza. Danzon developed in the 1870s in the region of Matanzas, where African culture remained strong. It had developed in full by 1879. Partners perform the slow, formal dance of danzón to music written in 2/4 time. Considered an elegant, traditional dance today, danzón was once considered too intimate and scandalous for high society.
HAITIANS IN CUBA: CHARANGA
Other forms of Cuban folk music include the bolero ballads from Santiago, and small French creole bands called charangas. Charangas come from Haitian refugees during the Haitian Revolution (1791), who settled in the Oriente and established their own style of danzón, forming a kind of cabildo called the Tumba Francesa and became known for comparsa, mambo, chachachá, and other kinds of folk music.
CHANGUI
Changuí is a rapid form of son from the eastern provinces (Santiago and Guantánamo, known together as Oriente). It is unclear how the changuí originated, and whether it is a precursor to the classical son, but it seems that the two developed along parallel lines. Changuí is characterized by its strong emphasis on the downbeat, as well as being fast and very percussive. While it was Elio Revé who modernized the changuí, musicians such as Candido Fabré and more recently Los Dan Den gave it the contemporary feel it has today. Most importantly Los Van Van, led by Juan Formell, drew on changuí, adding trombones, synthesizers, and more percussion, to create their songs.
SON
Son is a major genre of Cuban music and has helped lay the foundation for most of what came after. It arose in the eastern part of the island, among Spanish-descended farmers, and is thought to have been derived from changui, which also merged the Spanish guitar and African rhythms and to which son is closely related.
Son's characteristics vary widely today, with the defining characteristic a bass pulse that comes before the downbeat, giving son and its derivatives (including salsa) its distinctive rhythm; this is known as the anticipated bass.
Son traditionally concerns itself with themes like love and patriotism, though more modern artists are socially or politically oriented. Son lyrics are typically Decima (ten lines), octosyllabic verse, and it is performed in 2/4 time. The son clave has both a reverse and forward clave, which dever because a forward clave has a three-note bar (tresillo), followed by a two-note bar, while the reverse is the opposite.
BATÁ AND YUKA
One of the most vibrant cabildos was the Lukumí, which became known for batá drums, played traditionally at initiation ceremonies, and gourd ensembles called abwe. In the 1950s, a collection of Havana-area batá drummers called Santero helped bring Lucumí styles into mainstream Cuban music, while artists like Mezcla and Lázaro Ros melded the style with other forms, including zouk.
The Kongo cabildo is known for its use of yuka drums, as well as gallos (a form of song contest), makuta, and mani dances, the latter being closely related to the Brazilian martial dance capoeira. Yuka drum music eventually evolved into what is known as rumba, which has become internationally popular. Rumba bands traditionally use several drums, palitos, claves, and call and response vocals.
RUMBA
Rumba represents Cuba’s African influences and is one of Cuba’s most celebrated forms of music and dance. The genre is energetic and soulful, using conga drums, claves, maracas, scrapers, and bells. Abroad, rumba is primarily thought of as a glitzy ballroom dance, but its origins are spontaneous, improvised, and lively, coming from the dockworkers of Havana and Matanzas. Cuban rumba is not the same as American ballroom rumba (or rhumba) but inspired the popular ballroom dance category. Percussion (including Quinto and Tumbadoras drums and "Palitos", or sticks, to play a cáscara rhythm) and vocal parts (including a leader and a chorus) are combined to make a danceable and popular form of music.
These three kinds of rumba rhythms, with accompanying dances: Columbia, guaguanco, and yambú. The Columbia, played in 6/8 time, is danced by one man and is very swift, with aggressive and acrobatic moves. The guagancó, played in 2/4, is danced with one man and one woman and is much slower. The dance simulates the man's pursuit of the woman and is thus sexually charged. The yambú, known as "the old people's rumba", is a precursor to the guaguancó and is played more slowly. Yambú has almost died out and is played almost exclusively by folkloric ensembles.
With Cuban music being so famous all over the globe, it is natural that the country yearly hosts several music festivals that attract visitors from all countries. These festivals also belong to different genres of traditional Cuban music and usually feature performances of some of the best modern Cuban artists.