Culture of Cuba

The culture of Cuba is a complex mixture of different, often contradicting, factors and influences. The Cuban people and their customs are based predominately in the European culture, with both African and indigenous American influences.

Music

The music of Cuba, including the instruments and the dances, is mostly of European and African origin. Most forms of the present day are creolized fusions and mixtures of these two great sources. Almost nothing remains of the original Native traditions.

Fernando Ortíz, the first great Mexican folklorist, described Cuba's musical innovations as arising from the interplay ('transculturation') between African slaves settled on large sugarcane plantations and Spanish or Canary Islanders who grew tobacco on small farms. The African slaves and their descendants reconstructed large numbers of percussive instruments and corresponding rhythms. The great instrumental contribution of the Spanish was their guitar, but even more important was the tradition of European musical notation and techniques of musical composition.