A captivating collection of classic and contemporary Cuban songs.
No place is more defined by its music than Cuba. Music pours out of every doorway and vintage taxicab. A party in Cuba without music? Unthinkable! Cuba’s unique musical identity was well-developed by the beginning of the 20th century, but the flames burned even brighter with the influx of new sounds such as jazz from the U.S. Indeed, for many years, Cuba was America’s Caribbean playground as thousands of tourists flocked to Havana to gamble, cavort and soak up the island’s sun. It didn’t take long for the Cuban music to be discovered abroad, and, by the 1950s, people across the globe were dancing to rumba, mambo and cha cha cha. The global success of Buena Vista Social Club in the 1990s revealed that, even though Cuban music on the island had changed over the last 50 years, the world still liked the classic styles. As this collection demonstrates, those styles are alive and going strong in the hands of younger musicians both inside and outside of Cuba.