Timba

In the late 1980s and 1990s Cuba developed its own dance-music future — not a reply to New York but a parallel modernity. Timba grew from songo — the...

In the late 1980s and 1990s Cuba developed its own dance-music future — not a reply to New York but a parallel modernity. Timba grew from songo — the language Juan Formell built into Los Van Van after 1969 — and from Irakere's jazz harmony, funk and rock and Afro-Cuban folkloric vocabulary. José Luis "El Tosco" Cortés founded NG La Banda around 1988, often called the first timba band. The form took shape in the last late-socialist years and then flourished through the post-1991 Special Period, making song-specific tumbaos, abrupt gear-changes, arranged bloques, drum-kit integration and wide jazz harmony central. This is Cuba reconfiguring its own dance music on its own terms — not "Cuban salsa" by another name.

Years

1988-2015

In the app

Timeline