Chano Pozo created the role of the conga soloist in the modern band, somewhat th way Coleman Hawkins created the solo tenor sax.

Up through and including Lincoln, American politicians nursed a fantasy of repatriating blacks to Africa.

One often reads that the 1950s was the golden age of Cuban music, but it was really one long phase, from 1937 to 1958, each year with its own splendour.

Music is so essential to the Cuban character that you can't disentangle it from the history of the nation. the history of Cuban music is one of cultural collisions, of voluntary and forced migrations, of religions and revolutions.

That spirit of mockery characteristic of the guaracha was part of the mambo from the beginning.

The general disinclination of Spain to accept slaves from Islamicized regions of Africa during the formative years of Hispano-American society had enormous consequences for the development of music in the New World.

Every farm with slaves was a slave-breeding farm. Raising slaves was mostly a cottage industry.