Bomba

Bomba is Afro-Puerto-Rican call-and-response at its most direct: voices, maracas and the barril — barrel drums once headed with salted skins — in a...

Bomba is Afro-Puerto-Rican call-and-response at its most direct: voices, maracas and the barril — barrel drums once headed with salted skins — in a conversation where the lead dancer challenges the drummer and the drummer must answer every move. Rooted in the enslaved Afro-Boricua world of coastal and sugar zones like Loíza, it is a dense social practice, not picturesque folklore. Rafael Cepeda spent a lifetime keeping it living rather than embalmed. When Cortijo y su Combo and Ismael Rivera brought bomba and plena repertoire, rhythmic knowledge and Afro-Boricua identity into commercial popular orchestras in the 1950s, that tradition entered the bloodstream of what would later be branded salsa.

Era

Son & Trova

Traits

Afro-Puerto Rican drum-and-dance call-and-response; barril drums; a dialogue between lead drummer and dancer.