Cuba has a long African history. Under the yoke of mass slavery and the transatlantic slave trade, Africans were forced to leave their homeland against their will, taking their music with them. Over the centuries, the fusion with European influences gave rise to a distinctive Afro-Cuban musical tradition. Highly percussive, brass-driven, effervescent, and full of danceable rhythms. Its spirit, captured in thousands of recordings, remains forever rooted in Africa. The starting point here isn’t to keep things exactly as they are. On the contrary, returning to the source creates a loop—just like the ones that form the foundation of hip-hop rhythms.
