- Timba
Timba: high-energy Cuban dance music from the late 1980s, grown from son, songo and rumba with funk and jazz. Explosive and full of gear changes.
- Songo
Songo is a Cuban music and dance style that emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It bridges Afro-Cuban rhythms with modern influences like funk, rock, and jazz.
- Son
Son: the foundation of Cuban popular music, from eastern Cuba, with Spanish and African roots, tres, bongó and clave. The source of salsa and timba.
- Charanga
The Cuban orchestra format with flute, violins, piano and timbales, known from danzón, danzonete and cha-cha-chá, and later from songo and timba.
- Danzón
Cuba's elegant "national dance" from 1879: a salon dance of the orquesta típica and later the charanga, and a key step towards mambo and cha-cha-chá.
- Contradanza
The first Cuban salon music, from the 19th century: a European form with an African-coloured bass, the source of the habanera, the danza and the danzón.
- Changüí
Changüí is one of the oldest surviving forms of Cuban popular music, originating in the Guantánamo province of eastern Cuba in the early 19th century. It is widely regarded as a direct precursor to Son Cubano, and its raw, syncopated energy offers a window into what Cuban popular music sounded like before Son was refined and urbanized in Havana.
- Nengón
Nengón is a traditional Cuban music and dance style that originated in the mountainous region of Guantánamo (eastern Cuba). It is considered one of the precursors to changüí and later son cubano, which went on to influence salsa and other global genres.
- Rumba
Cuban rumba as music: percussion, rumba clave, call-and-response singing, the yambú, guaguancó and columbia styles, and its influence on son, songo and timba.