Episode 47: Rumba and Guaguanco

This episode is a great education in one of the cornerstone rhythms of the latin music world. This music was born in Cuba, has historical roots in Africa, and more than any other strain of latin music it inspired modern salsa music. The music in question is rumba from Cuba, specifically guaguanco… but these terms are often misused, so part of my job today is to give you the true meaning behind these names. The first thing to know is that rumba is a somewhat flexible term for a genre of music, while guaguanco is a specific rhythm that is one type of rumba music. The term rumba can be applied to several styles of music, much like we use the terms samba or merengue. Guaguanco, on the other hand, must always observe a very particular rhythmic sequence. In Cuba, if you see a performance of guaguanco, it will almost certainly involve no guitar, bass, or horns… purist guaguanco is just vocals and percussion, the same way it was performed when it was created by the Afro-Cuban community almost 150 years ago. In terms of the music in today’s show, I feel pretty confident saying everything here is accurately categorized as Cuban rumba or rumba fusion. But I suspect that a purist would find perhaps only 10 songs today that they would call true guaguanco, even though you will hear that word repeated in at least half of these tracks.