| Rumba
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| Stylistic origins:
| African, native and Spanish music
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| Cultural origins:
| African slaves in Havana and Matanzas
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| Typical instruments:
| Quinto and tumbadores drums and palitos
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| Mainstream popularity:
| Significant in Latin America and Africa, rare elsewhere
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| Derivative forms:
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| Subgenres
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| Guaguancó, columbia, and yambú
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| Fusion genres
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| Chachacha - Salsa music
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| Regional scenes
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| Other topics
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Rumba is both a family of music rhythms and a dance style that originated in Africa and traveled via the slave trade to Cuba and the New World.
There is a ballroom dance, also called Rumba, based on Cuban Rumba and Son. Also, still another variant of Rumba music and dance was popularized in the United States in 1930s, which was almost twice as fast, as exemplified by the popular tune, The Peanut Vendor. This type of "Big Band Rumba" was also known as Rhumba. The latter term still survives, with no clearly agreed upon meaning: one may find it applied to Ballroom, Big Band, and Cuban rumbas.
Some dancers considered rumba the most erotic and sensual Latin dance, for its relatively slow rhythm and the hip movement. Rumba is actually the second slowest Latin dance: the spectrum runs Bolero, Rumba, ChaChaCha, Mambo in order of the speed of the beat.
Cuban rumba
History
Rumba arose in Havana in the 1890s. As a sexually-charged Afro-Cuban dance, rumba was often suppressed and restricted because it was viewed as dangerous and lewd.
Later, Prohibition in the United States caused a flourishing of the relatively-tolerated cabaret rumba, as American tourists flocked to see crude sainetes (short plays) which featured racial stereotypes and generally, though not always, rumba.
Perhaps because of the mainstream and middle-class dislike for rumba, son montuno became seen as "the" national music for Cuba, and the expression of Cubanisimo. Rumberos reacted by mixing the two genres in the 30s, 40s and 50s; by the mid-40s, the genre had regained respect, especially the guaguanco style.
In the 1990s the French group Gypsy Kings became a popular New Flamenco group by playing rumba flamenco music.
Characteristics
Rumba is sometimes confused with salsa, with which it shares origins and essential movements.
There are several rhythms of the Rumba family:
- Yambu
- Guagancó
- Columbia
- Columbia del Monte
Rumba is thought to have contributed to the origin of the cha-cha-cha, and indeed most figures (if not all, somehow) can be reinterpreted in cha-cha-cha.
Ballroom rumba
International style
American style
American Style Rumba is characterized by the Latin motion (hip sway) arising from a knee being bent, as opposed to the straight leg style used in International.
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