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Rumba

In Cuba rumba is a music and dance genre which emerged in the late 19th Century amongst freed slaves and poor Afro-Cubans concentrated in urban areas, particularly in the ports of Havana and Matanzas. It developed among these Afro-Cuban underclasses and enabled them to express their hardships and problems. Today rumba continues to be played at gatherings and parties where it tends to be spontaneous and often improvised. It has been further developed within the performance arena by folkloric groups who work to preserve and promote rumba as an expression of Cuban national culture.

Although rumba is a Cuban creation, its strong roots in African music can be clearly heard in the cyclic rhythmical structure, interlocking parts, time-line, and call-and-response singing. The ensemble features only voices and percussion – early rumberos (rumba performers) played the rhythms on crates and upturned drawers, whilst playing the beat with a spoon on a frying pan.

Nowadays, the ensemble includes a set of three tumbadoras (conga drums) – the lowest-pitched hembra, the middle-register macho, and the high-pitched quinto which improvises syncopated patterns over the other interlocking parts. Other instruments include cajones (wooden rumba boxes), and the palitos (a pair of thin wooden sticks which are used to play a rhythm on the side of one of the tumbadoras or on a wooden block). The clave (literally ‘key’) is fundamental to the rumba and is played on a pair of hard wooden sticks also called clave.

The vocal section is comprised of a lead singer and chorus. Rumba typically begins with the diana (nonsense syllables) sung by the lead singer, who then sings the main section of the song (normally in Spanish) with lyrics referring to topics including love, life in the barrio, and some political themes. The final section is the call-and-response montuno.

There are three main types of rumba – guaguancó, yambú, and Columbia – which are most easily differentiated by their dances. The guaguancó is danced by a couple: the man aims to dominate his partner by performing the vacunao (a pelvic thrust, which may alternatively be expressed with the hand, foot, or a scarf) whilst the woman tries to evade him. The yambú is also danced by a couple, but is slower than the guaguancó and there is no vacunao. The columbia is the fastest of the three types and is danced by a solo male dancer in a virtuoso style who often performs acrobatic movements or dance with machetes, knives, or bottles.