Latin America Music & Dance

The Latin America music & dance are maybe the features that most characterize to this people around of the world.

The people of Latin America is an fusion of ethnic groups. The composition varies from country to country; some have a dominance of a mixed population, some have a high percentage of people of amerindian origin, some are dominated by inhabitants of European origin and some populations are primarily of African origin.

Most or all Latin American countries have asian minorities. The cultural expressions is the product of many diverse influences.

Native cultures of the peoples that inhabited the continents prior to the arrival of the Europeans. European cultures, brought mainly by the Spanish, the Portuguese and the French. This can be seen in any expression of the region's rich artistic traditions, including painting, literature and music, and in the realms of science and politics. The most enduring European colonial influence was language. Italian and British influence has been important as well.

Peoples of African descent have influenced the ethno-scapes of Latin America and the Caribbean. This is manifest in the Caribbean through dances such as, the rumba, the mambo, the samba, the bomba, the plena, the candombe, the cumbia, the merengue, and the salsa, to mention but a few.

One of the main characteristics of Latin American music is its diversity, from the lively rhythms of Central America and the Caribbean to the more austere sounds of southern South America. Another characteristic of Latin American music is its original combination of the diversity of styles that arrived in The Americas and became significant, from the early Spanish and European Baroque to the different beats of the African rhythms.

Latino-Caribbean music, such as salsa, merengue, bachata, and more recently reggaeton come from such countries as Cuba, Panama, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic, are styles of music that have been strongly influenced by African rhythms and melodies. Haiti's kompa is a genre of music heavily influenced by African tribal rhythms synthesized with modern sounds.

In Brazil, samba, North-American jazz, European classical music, and choro combined into the bossa nova music. Recently the Haitian kompa has become increasingly popular. The Reggaeton, which blends Jamaican music influences of reggae and dancehall with those of Latin America, such as bomba and plena, as well as that of hip hop, is becoming more popular, in spite of the controversy surrounding its lyrics, dance steps (Perreo) and music videos. It has become very popular among populations with a "migrant culture" influence - both Latino populations in the U.S., such as southern Florida and New York City, and parts of Latin America where temporary migration to the U.S. is common, such as Guatemala and parts of Mexico.

Other main musical genres of Latin American include the Argentine and Uruguayan tango, the Colombian cumbia and vallenato, the Mexican ranchera, the Chilean Cueca, the Peruvian Marinera and Tondero, the Uruguayan Candombe, the Central American (Garifuna) Punta, the French Antillean Zouk, the Antillean Soca and Calypso, and the various styles of music from Pre-Columbian traditions that are widespread in the Andean region.

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Latin America Music & Dance