What would it take for salsa to have a revival?

For salsa to have a revival, it needs a fresh generation of artists blending traditional rhythms with modern sounds, a resurgence of salsa dancing in clubs and social settings, collaborations with mainstream pop culture, and a focus on cultural education. Live music events and media campaigns, including social media challenges, could also help reignite interest and bring salsa back into the spotlight.
Where do you usually go for salsa? Do you dance as well?
 
Good article about the current trend to salsa roots in latin music, drawing parallels to Fania in the 70s:

"“Salsa… consolidated itself in the ‘70s as kind of a one of the most significant musical cultural contributions of Puerto Ricans to the world, to the United States, to Latin America, but that music was indebted to plena, to jíbaro music, to bomba music into aguinaldos,” says Moreno."

And no mention of Cuba in the whole article.
 
"“Salsa… consolidated itself in the ‘70s as kind of a one of the most significant musical cultural contributions of Puerto Ricans to the world, to the United States, to Latin America, but that music was indebted to plena, to jíbaro music, to bomba music into aguinaldos,” says Moreno."

And no mention of Cuba in the whole article.
The article is very badly written in many respects. But there is an initial mention of Cuban 'roots'.
 
At least I learned from the article that Rauw Alejandro's beautiful "Cosa nuestra" covers "Que Lio" from Lavoe/Colon. Would be good for our "Salsa remakes exposed" thread.
 
The article is very badly written in many respects. But there is an initial mention of Cuban 'roots'.
This made me read the article and I stopped at the line that someone called bad bunny is a global superstar. Firstly, I never heard that name until someone posted about it or him on the forum recently. Secondly I am like what a bad name is bad bunny. I still can’t get out of my head whether to take anything with that type of name seriously :D


“The Puerto Rican artist was the most-streamed Spotify artist for three consecutive years beginning in 2020, selling out his most recent 2024 Most-Wanted tour, and taking home three Grammy’s since the start of his career.”

More than Taylor Swift? Or she doesn’t license her songs to be streamed on Spotify.?

Only time I listen to any music outside of social dancing is if the NPR (public radio) when driving is boring me. That’s rare too for NPR to be boring. Sometimes they are replaying a segment I already heard. Then again I will switch to non-western music.


P.S. Now that I read it, I didn’t find it to be badly written at all. I think it is well written within the context the writer has chosen.
 
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"“Salsa… consolidated itself in the ‘70s as kind of a one of the most significant musical cultural contributions of Puerto Ricans to the world, to the United States, to Latin America, but that music was indebted to plena, to jíbaro music, to bomba music into aguinaldos,” says Moreno."

And no mention of Cuba in the whole article.
It is not about Cuba or salsa history or salsa trends.

That quote might be correct in that, it is probably most known (cultural export) of Puerto Rico. What else can anyone think of something more prominent culturally or otherwise coming out of PR that rest of the world knows.

Let’s take yoga for example. Someone has to be living under the rocks to not know that it comes from India. But if there were to be (or there are) articles about how yoga clothings became a fashion trend or how commercially successful the yoga studios are, mentioning India isn’t necessary. Nor is it necessary in that context to delve on how the popular yoga culture only focuses on the physical fitness aspect devoid of the meditative and spiritual practice which are integral to how yoga has been practiced for a millennia.
 
This made me read the article and I stopped at the line that someone called bad bunny is a global superstar. Firstly, I never heard that name until someone posted about it or him on the forum recently.
That's not unusual, I didn't know neither him or Taylor Swift until recently. Youtuber Rick Beato recently made a podcast about this: the biggest stars nowadays are unknown to most. He tells the same: his friends tell him that they don't know these names. The stars are big while most don't know them, unlike in the past when everybody knew the big names, if you liked them or not.

“The Puerto Rican artist was the most-streamed Spotify artist for three consecutive years beginning in 2020, selling out his most recent 2024 Most-Wanted tour, and taking home three Grammy’s since the start of his career.”

More than Taylor Swift? Or she doesn’t license her songs to be streamed on Spotify.?
Both were alternately first place over the last five years, see year's ranking here:
 
Check out this one, by Mike Bahía


not quite sure how to classify it (not that it matters), quite interesting what's going on in percussion
 
It has an impact, sure: it lead on YT within two days to 5 million views of Bad Bunny's salsa "Baile inolvidable" - I guess many of this rapper's fans will not have listened till the end of the song, but if only 20% do that makes already a million. That will not cause a revival, but anyway some folks may find they like it. I find the second half of the song really beautiful:


Interestingly a friend's girlfriend is a Bad Bunny fan and was telling me how she's now getting tiktok videos for salsa tutorials because she's listened to the bad bunny songs so many times.

That's the real importance of cultural relevance to driving participation I guess
 
P.S. Now that I read it, I didn’t find it to be badly written at all. I think it is well written within the context the writer has chosen.
It's not as badly written as I initially stated, but certainly contains some painful moments. Also it misses out a very relevant point: reggaeton is in many ways the opposite to salsa. Objectively speaking, reggaeton is mostly commercial, formulaic crap with little reference to previous Latin music traditions. Meaning the billions of people who love it are unlikely to become salseros.
 
Yes Yuca, it's lacking of a lot of phases of the salsa history but I think it's a good thing that there are salsa articles. It's so rare in our days.
The article is not about history of salsa. It is about today’s Latin music/musicians no longer needing English language songs to be recognized or make a chart topper. Salsa song/s from the particular album is an example as something that didn’t had to be anglicized, while the musician is not shying from dipping into his heritage or creating for Latin audience only. It is about how the music that is popular with Latin American audience is going mainstream.
 
It's not as badly written as I initially stated, but certainly contains some painful moments. Also it misses out a very relevant point: reggaeton is in many ways the opposite to salsa. Objectively speaking, reggaeton is mostly commercial, formulaic crap with little reference to previous Latin music traditions. Meaning the billions of people who love it are unlikely to become salseros.
Youngsters will always dislike the music which their parents and grandparents listen. But when they become 30 years (like Bad Bunny) this often changes. It becomes less important what the other's think and life changes. They may discover that couple-dance is a nice way for enjoying the evening. So it may have an impact on a few.

Who can be better to analyze a bad bunny than somebody called "The bad one" or "El Malo" in spanish? This peruvian youtuber speaks (in spanish only, sorry) about the recent hype of reggaeton stars singing salsa and the connection between reggaeton and salsa. He points out the connection is not new, Andy Montanez did it with salsaton 20 years back. He guesses that Bad Bunny was critized too often for his mumbling voice so that he naturally choose salsa for singing differently, as salsa requires a clear voice. He also guesses it is probably just a short fashion, and that reggaeton stars are trying to amplify their audience in case reggaeton finally gets out of fashion. In total a fair but not positive look on it.

 
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