Bang Bang and Gone

Latin rhythm, Black American soul and bilingual hooks made a distinct Nuyorican youth sound — then the market folded it into salsa.

For a few years in the mid-1960s, U.S.-born Puerto Rican and other Black and Latino musicians in New York fused son montuno with R&B, soul, doo-wop and English-language hooks. Boogaloo was a distinct youth-led Nuyorican crossover sound, not the first Puerto Rican music made in the city. Joe Cuba, Pete Rodríguez, Richie Ray, Johnny Colón and Joe Bataan turned it into a radio and dance-floor phenomenon. Its decline was not instantaneous and its causes remain contested: changing venues, radio tastes and Fania-era market consolidation all mattered, while Latin soul continued inside the emerging salsa scene.

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