Cuban rumba

Cuban rumba is an Afro-Cuban music and dance genre characterized by complex rhythms, call-and-response vocals, and expressive, often flirtatious movements, rooted in African and Spanish traditions.

The story of rumba

Rumba was born in the second half of the 19th century in the solares — the crowded tenement courtyards — and on the docks of Havana and Matanzas. After slavery was abolished in 1886, Afro-Cubans of Congo, Carabalí, and Yoruba descent lived there side by side with poor Spanish immigrants. In the evening, after work, people gathered to sing, play, and dance. There was no money for real drums, so they played on whatever was at hand: wooden packing crates (cajones) from the harbour, a drawer, a door, two spoons. The singing borrowed the Spanish décima; the rhythm, the call-and-response, and the movement came from Africa.

Out of these gatherings grew three styles. The slow, elegant yambú, the oldest; the flirtatious couple's dance guaguancó, with the playful vacunao; and the fast, acrobatic columbia, where a solo dancer challenges the lead drum, the quinto. Every rumba is a conversation: the singer improvises, the choir answers, the quinto comments, and the dancer replies with the body.

For a long time rumba was looked down on as the music of the poor, black neighbourhoods, and at times it was even banned. Groups such as Los Muñequitos de Matanzas (founded in 1952) and later Yoruba Andabo carried it from the courtyard to the stage. In 2016 UNESCO recognised Cuban rumba as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

Rumba is still danced in Cuba's streets and courtyards today — and anyone dancing casino or timba carries a piece of it in their body. Read more in the history of rumba.

Styles

  • Columbia
    Columbia is the fastest rumba style: a virtuosic solo dance with a 6/8 feel, traditionally danced by men and now by women too. Its hallmark is a playful, competitive dialogue between the dancer and the lead drum, the quinto.
  • Guaguancó
    Guaguancó, the best-known rumba style: a flirtatious couple dance with the vacunao and the botao, over three congas, palitos and rumba clave. How it sounds and how it is danced.
  • Yambú
    Yambú, the oldest and slowest rumba style from Matanzas and Havana: a calm couple dance without the vacunao, with movements that feign frailty, on cajones or congas.
  • Mimetic Rumba
    Mimetic rumba is a narrative variant of rumba danced to the slow rhythm of yambú. Through mime and acting, the dancer acts out what the song describes — a small theatre in motion.