Editor’s note: This is the second entry in our two-part series on the politics of Salsa, the first of which was published on the 50th anniversary of the famous Fania All-Stars concert, “Live at Yankee Stadium.”
Introduction
Any discussion of the politics of Salsa has to consider the important but short-lived Boogaloo era that preceeded it. Boogaloo, a blend of Afro-Cuban, R&B, and soul rhythms, was an expression of the experience of the mainly young Nuyoricans that played it [1]. While discussing the Boogaloo era, this article delves further into the political significance and influence of Salsa, particularly 1) its antagonistic relationship to Fania Records, as an example of the appropriation of culture and the exploitation of musicians inherent in the capitalist music industry; and 2) as an artistic expression of resistance that represented and illuminated the struggles of marginalized people of the barrios of New York City and Latin America.
In order to fully grasp the impact that the movement on the ground had on the culture, we sample some of Salsa’s revolutionary and leftist messages as communicated by a few of its famous songs and artists. A deep understanding of the movement requires a detour through the history of Salsa and Fania Records—and the latter’s complicated relationship with Cuba after the U.S.-imposed embargo. This detour leads back to the factors that led to Salsa’s decline, its legacy today, and its potential future.
“I like it like that”
You might not think you’ve heard a Boogaloo song in your life. If you’ve ever seen the Burger King’s famous Whopper commercial, however, or if Cardi’s B’s “I like it” was your summer 2018 jam, then you have: both sample Pete Rodriguez’s 1967 party favorite, “I Like it Like That.” Although Rodriguez’s hit was more of a party tune, his peer Joe Cuba’s hits like “Bang Bang” and “El Pito” were resistance anthems.
The majority of Boogaloo artists were very young, and some were even teenagers. Teenagers, like Salsa great Willie Colon, were often self-taught because of cuts to music programs at school. Public schools further contributed to the decline of Boogaloo as principals encouraged Puerto Rican parents to not speak Spanish to their kids at home, resulting in the majority of Boogaloo songs recorded in English or Spanglish.
The Joe Cuba Sextet’s 1966 “El Pito” (or “I’ll Never Go Back to Georgia”) was both a nod to and a continuation of the legacy of defiant resistance to Jim Crow segregation in the U.S. South. The song borrowed directly from Dizzy Gillespie’s tune, “Manteca.” One year later, Joe Cuba’s “Bang! Bang!” was an expression of the two languages and cultures navigated by young Nuyoricans growing up in NYC. Salsa legend Cheo Feliciano, who at the time sung for Cuba’s band, showcases the solidarity between Black American and Caribbean cultures when singing, “Cuchi cuchi cuchi, Cornbread! Hog maws and chitlins! Cornbread! Mami! estas comiendo cuchifrito, Cornbread! hog maws and chitlins! Cornbread! Lechon! Lechon” [2]. The language and cultural fluidity displayed by Cheo, a Black Puerto Rican, is a prime example of the Nuyorican experience in the 1960s and 70s.
If the Black and Puerto Rican codes threaded into these lyrics weren’t enough, the title and chorus of the song imitate a favorite Black Power chant of the time. The chorus goes, “Beep Beep! Ahh! Bang Bang!” while the chant went, “Bang Bang! Beep Beep! Bang Bang! Umgawa! Black Powah!” [3]. While the influences between Black and Puerto Rican cultural practices were bi-directional, one thing is certain: the Black community was not ignoring these lyrics. One major reason for Boogaloo’s success, after all, was its popularity among the Black population.
Boogaloo also had a direct connection with left-wing political forces and socialism in particular. For many years, the only station that would play such music was WEVD, named after Eugene V. Debs, an anti-imperialist socialist who won over 3 percent of the popular vote in the 1920 Presidential election while he was imprisoned for speaking out against the first inter-imperialist war of the 20th Century.
The leftist radio DJ of Jewish descent “Symphony Sid”—who also played jazz in the 1940s—introduced Boogaloo through the radio waves [4]. Symphony Sid became an important figure in the popularization of Salsa music in the United States, organizing dances and later emceeing for the Fania All-Stars.
Another Boogaloo artist was Afro-Filipino Joe Bataan, who went to jail at the age of 15. Bataan contributed to the Boogaloo craze by singing about his life and struggles under capitalism. With tracks like “Poor Boy” and “Freedom,” in addition to his 1968 album, Riot! (the best-selling Latin album at the time), he was not only an example of this raw narration of urban folklore but also of the multinational character of the Salsa explosion [5].
Boogaloo was short-lived; it was dead by 1969. What killed such a popular music genre so suddenly? Many attribute its demise to the greedy band leaders and club promoters. Others attribute Boogaloo’s short lifespan to old-guard musicians like Tito Puente who complained Boogaloo was not Latin music and its fans “were off clave,” meaning their tempo and structure was off [6]. The root cause of Boogaloo’s demise was the growing capitalist music industry, which faced the growing threat posed by the young musicians it exploited at increasing rates. According to Boogaloo great King Nando: “We were the hottest bands and we drew the crowds… But were never given top billing or top dollar… When word got out we were going to unite and no longer accept the small package deals, our records were no longer played over the radio” [7].
Izzy Sanabria believed Fania Records, one of the main players on the stage, were responsible for Boogaloo’s decline after many of the young musicians refused to sign the packaged deals designed solely for their exploitation. By the 1970s, Fania would corner the Latin music industry, voluntarily and involuntarily signing the best talents—quickly becoming equated with Salsa, the music it expropriated from the streets of NYC and used to headline the pre-fight concert for the historic Muhammad Ali vs. George Foreman bout in Zaire (modern-day Democratic Republic of the Congo) [8]. Most of the Boogaloo musicians, like Willie Colon, Cheo Feliciano, Tony Pabon, and others cut their teeth playing Boogaloo before becoming Salsa’s greatest artists.
Fania: The Motown of Latin music
Fania Records was created by Italian lawyer Jerry Masucci and Dominican flutist and conductor Johnny Pacheco. In 1971, they hosted a famous concert at the Cheetah club and formed the Fania All-Stars. Like in professional sports, it was an All-Star cast of the best Salsa talents out there. As the name indicates, they were grouped together under one corporation: Fania Records. By enticing already exploited artists with “more lucrative” contracts than their competitors, Fania cornered the market. Even artists who initially refused eventually had no choice but to join Fania because as Fania grew in popularity, it began to buy the smaller labels and in turn acquired their artists [9]. Massuci followed the same business model as Motown founder Berry Gordy.
Fania did more than fill the void left by the end of the Boogaloo craze; it also capitalized on the U.S.’s response to the Cuban Revolution: a complete embargo and blockade. Because the embargo blocked the flow of Cuban music into the U.S., effectively censoring Cuban music, you could say Salsa was partly a product of the Cuban Revolution.
Since the 1940s, Latin music played in the U.S. was strictly Cuban and played mostly by Cuban musicians. After the success of the Revolution, Latin music retained its Cuban influences but evolved into a distinct and unique new form of music, influenced by Latin musicians in NYC who were mostly Puerto Rican, like Willie Colon, Eddie Palmieri, Pete “El Conde” Rodriguez, and Hector Lavoe, to name a few [10]. They were later joined internationally by musicians across Latin America, like Ruben Blades of Panama, Oscar De Leon of Venezuela, Ismael Rivera of Puerto Rico, Fruko y sus Tesos of Colombia, and Cuban legend Celia Cruz. There were also many non-Latin artists, like Jewish pianist Larry Harlow, white trombonist Barry Rogers, and Afro-Filipino Joe Baatan.
While Fania was driven by the capitalist motives of Masucci and his investors, its music was a direct challenge to the same system that produced those motives. Pianist Palmieri and Ruben Blades identified as socialists and anti-imperialists and their music, like hip-hop, was a protest against the conditions of el barrio.
Fania produced protest songs against poverty, songs calling for the release of political prisoners, songs against racism, songs celebrating the African and indigenous roots of Latinos, songs against imperialist wars and intervention, and in the case of Palmieri, songs celebrating the Cuban Revolution and other socialist and national liberation struggles throughout the world. There was a contradictory relationship between the cultural resistance of Salsa music and the capitalist music industry it resisted. As explained by Salsa historian Frances R. Aparicio, Salsa exists in a contradictory position “between hegemonic interests and expression of resistance” [11].
Dancing in the streets
Let’s explore a few of their classic Salsa hits that had people literally dancing in the streets both in protest and celebration. You can listen along to the songs mentioned through this playlist:
Tony Pabon, the vocalist and composer for Pete Rodriguez’s Boogaloo band, wasted little time before taking on greedy bandleader Pete and the music industry, fighting for better compensation for the artists that created and produced this very profitable art form but barely got anything in return. Soon after the end of Boogaloo, he formed his own Salsa band and named it “La Protesta” (The Protest) [12]. Displayed on the cover of their self-titled debut album was a clenched fist holding a Molotov cocktail. The album featured a track, titled “Bandera” (Flag), that became an instant classic, an anthem for Puerto Rican independence from the U.S., which has colonized the island since 1898.
Pabon was inspired by revolutionaries who fought for a free Puerto Rico. The song tells the story of a poor peasant who died in prison. The song’s narrator is a son who recounts his father explaining that the poor peasant was actually the president. When he asked why, he remembers his dad saying, “because he demanded a flag.” The peasant-president described in the song is none other than revolutionary Don Pedro Albizu Campos, father of the Puerto Rican independence movement, who died in prison, poisoned by radiation experiments ordered by the U.S.
“Con Los Pobres Estoy”
The Fania label launched the careers of many in the Salsa world, making them overnight celebrities. For some, this newfound success and notoriety allowed them to leave their overcrowded and rat-infested apartments in el barrio for penthouse apartments on 5th Avenue. But for most, Salsa’s popularity and record sales did not significantly change their material conditions. The majority of Fania’s Salsa artists worked under unfair contracts and were intensely exploited by the label. Even with the famous singer Hector Lavoe, tour managers and executives of the label overworked him so much that he, like others industry-wide, turned to drugs to keep up with the demands of a capitalist music industry. Lavoe died without a cent to his name in a rundown Queens apartment of HIV/AIDS contracted from a dirty syringe. At one point, drug addiction was so rampant that some of the artists started a rehab program to help their peers, but their attempts to reach their artist-peers were blocked by the label [13].
Most Salsa researchers would agree that no artist was robbed worse than Afro-Puerto Rican composer Catalino Alonso, or Tite Curet Alonso as he is more commonly known. Tite composed thousands of songs, hundreds of which became best-selling hits for Fania Records. His songs were the official anthems of el barrio, celebrating the stories of poor and working-class people, and asking questions that challenged the rule of the rich elite in society. Two of these songs were “Con Los Pobres Estoy” interpreted by Roberto Roena y su Apollo Sound and “Juan Albañil” by Cheo Feliciano.
Afro-Puerto Rican Roberto Roena, a former professional baseball player and professional dancer, interpreted the classic number titled “Con Los Pobres Estoy,” or “I am with the poor” in Spanish. The song was part of his 1974 album Pa’ Fuera. It is a celebration and all-out defense of poor people. The song praises the slums of the city, where, while there is poverty, you will still find happiness; you will find community and camaraderie among the poor. The artist says over and over again “For the poor I am, for the poor I am… Wherever I go, I am with the poor always, in every poor man a friend, to that one I give a hand, I am poor” [14].
Another classic hit was “Juan Albañil,” or “Juan the bricklayer” in Spanish, by Cheo Feliciano on his 1980 album Sentimiento, tú. It tells the story of a worker who is prohibited from entering the very same buildings he builds because he can’t afford to live in them. Tite Curet Alonso writes a staunch critique of one of the main contradictions of capitalism that makes people feel like they are nothing but cogs in a machine, alienated from the product or services they produce [15]. The song goes: “He passes by crying, looking at how much he built, he goes lamenting the insignificant importance that he who works has after he has worked” [16]. The song continues its somber tone when the father’s kids ask him why they can’t enter the buildings he built, to which he has no answer other than the advice that there is no future in work as a bricklayer. But Tite does not leave us hopeless, because at the conclusion of the song, he injects a shot of revolutionary optimism, telling Juan not to worry, that “the time will come, what’s yours will be yours” [17]. While the song’s tone is somber, “Juan Albañil” is no sad ballad, because the sweet and magic voice of Cheo and the upbeat arrangement makes this song in fact a club favorite and requested at many parties.
Tite Curet Alonso died poor and his family is still engulfed in several lawsuits against the music industry demanding just compensation for the majestic work of this great composer and hero of poor and working-class people everywhere.
“Revolt/La Libertad Logico” (“Revolt/Logical Freedom”)
The Cuban revolution was a beacon of hope and inspiration for Latin America and the world. Fidel Castro and the July 26 Movement dared to make a socialist revolution ninety miles from the shores of the belly of the beast. The revolution inspired not only a new generation of revolutionaries in Latin America but also Salsa artists who went from taking musical cues from Cuba to political messaging too.
Palmieri was one of these artists. He is perhaps the greatest Salsa musical arranger and composer of all time. The first entry of Salsa music into the Library of Congress was his 1965 song “Azucar Pa’ Ti.” Palmieri considered himself a socialist during this time and believed in a free Puerto Rico. 1969 was a year of struggle. The movement against the war in Vietnam was in full swing in response to the Tet offensive; FBI director J. Edgar Hoover declared the Black Panthers “one of the greatest threats to the nation’s internal security” and the Young Lords launched their “Garbage offensive” where, in response to the city not collecting Spanish Harlem residents’ trash for weeks, they decided as a protest to dump it all in the street, shutting it down. This is the backdrop to Palmieri’s 1969 album titled Justicia. The album had a song with the same name demanding justice for Puerto Ricans and Black people. The song also contained a fast-paced conga drum solo which he introduces with the line: “My Drum demands justice” [18]. Justicia was a musical and cultural manifesto against the capitalist and imperialist system that allows for injustices to take place.
His 1971 album Vamonos Pal’ Monte featured two club favorites that took the rhythm section to new heights, making the music almost irresistible for dancing, but it did not stray too far away from the strong political message of his previous album. The song “Vamonos Pal’ Monte,” titled after the album, is a call to go up to the mountains, alluding to when the Cuban rebels of the July 26 Movement went up to the Sierra Maestra to begin the revolution. The record contains a perfect arrangement with an iconic conga intro and not one but two solos or “descargas” as they are called in Salsa. The first descargas is an organ piano solo by Palmieri’s brother, Charlie, and the second one a conga solo by Nicky Marrero who is also a timbales player. In another revolutionary anthem, the track “Revolt/La Libertad Logico,” Palmieri brilliantly arranges the timbales to mimic the sounds of AK-47s going off in battle and the cymbals to simulate bombs dropping.
Any discussion of the great Palmieri has to make note of his 1972 Eddie Palmieri Recorded Live At Sing Sing with Harlem River Drive. No, that was not a typo, the album was recorded at Sing Sing “Correctional” Facility, or maximum-security prison, in New York. Afro-Puerto Rican Young Lords Party leader Felipe Luciano, who not only went on the trip to Sing Sing but also lends his poetic vocals to several of the tracks, recounts the trip in an article in The New York Times:
“They were going to blow Sing Sing into oblivion; they were going to turn the prison right side up. With their basses, trombones, saxes and congas lovingly cradled in their arms, they marched into the bus and took their seats. This was the Third World Liberation Army armed with love bullets and machine guns that looked like guitars… you could feel the collective will of Blacks and Puerto Ricans to do what Rap Brown calls the ‘jerrio‐get‐down.’ It was going to be a funky Spanish hoedown” [19].
In addition to Felipe Luciano, also in attendance were other leaders and members of the Young Lords party, Joe Gaines as MC who was another DJ from the leftist radio station WEVD, Memphis soul legend Isaac Hayes, and members of Aretha Franklin’s band, among others. This revolutionary and star-studded cast were all there to witness and celebrate the union of a massive political and cultural movement in front of 1,600 inmates, who themselves were mostly Black and Puerto Rican, fighting for their freedom and liberation.
Black is beautiful
Salsa dates its lineage all the way back to the African continent. And as you may have observed, most of the artists we have mentioned thus far are Afro-Latinos. The foundation of Salsa music in many ways is rooted in its challenge to white supremacy by the popularization and celebration of a mostly a Black musical form. Hence, racism and the uplifting of African identity is a significant and common theme in Salsa. Some examples of this are the songs of two great Afro-Boricuas Pete “El Conde” Rodríguez’s “La Abolición” and Ismael Rivera’s “Las Caras Lindas.”
Rodriguez’s “La Abolición,” from this 1976 album titled Este Negro Si Es Sabroso, presents the idea that while slavery might have been legally abolished, Black people still suffer under the systematic conditions of de facto slavery and oppression. The song concludes that “If abolition came, the Black man did not enjoy it… his freedom never came” [20]. Slavery and Black resistance were common themes in many of El Conde’s songs, like “Babaila” from his 1974 El Conde album, which tells the story of an enslaved African kidnapped from his homeland and sold into slavery to a distant land to work in a plantation [21].
Ismael Rivera’s “Las Caras Lindas,” from his 1978 album Esto Si Es Lo Mio is the Latin American anthem of the Black is Beautiful cultural movement that began in the United States in the 1960s. Dedicated to challenging the racist white supremacist notions of beauty and culture rooted in society, the song is pure poetry that celebrates AfroLatinidad throughout the entire African diaspora in Latin America. And if the reader needed another reminder of the brilliance of Tite Curet Alonso, “La Abolición,” “Babaila,” and “Las Caras Lindas,” were all written by him.
Ismael Rivera also wrote songs against racist violence and police brutality like “El Negro Bembom” as well as songs in solidarity with prisoners like “Las Tumbas.” In “Las Tumbas” Rivera tells the story of an inmate that cries out that he wants to leave prison, that prison conditions are inhumane and only fit for the dead, and then adds “When will I get out of this prison, that tortures me, tortures my heart. If I’m still here, I’ll go mad” [22]. Jazz aficionados will recognize an identical intro to John Coltrane’s 1958 “Blue Train” track on the Blue Note label. This time instead of the legendary sound of Coltrane’s tenor sax, we hear trombonist Harry D’aguilar on the tension part of the chord and trumpet player Hector Zarzuela on the resolve. Here we find another nod to the musical exchange, characterized by solidarity amongst the Black diaspora in the Western hemisphere.
Salseras fighting patriarchy in the capitalist music industry
Cuban legend Celia Cruz is a household name in the Latin music world. But while she was one of Salsa’s most popular artists of all time, she was one of only two women (La Lupe was the other one) in Fania Records’ almost all-male cast. The lack of representation of women artists in Salsa music is not unique to Salsa but an institutional feature of the sexist music industry. It is part of the double oppression women are subjected to, rooted in the institutional patriarchal capitalist system that exploits them as workers and oppresses them as women.
Celia Cruz experienced triple oppression because she was a Black Cuban woman, who began her musical career before the revolution, during the racist dictatorial regime of Fulgencio Batista. While de jure segregation did not exist in Cuba, de facto institutional racism and segregation was the order of the day. Black Cubans were excluded from private “whites only” pools and hotels, and most radio stations refused to play Afro-Cuban music. Celia Cruz left the island shortly after the revolution to pursue her musical career, but after the rise of Fania and Salsa music, she denounced the revolution and was heralded by the right-wing Cuban exile community in Miami as an anti-communist hero.
Celia Cruz’s music celebrated her Afro-Cuban roots with albums dedicated to Santeria, a syncretic religion born in Cuba that combines West African Yoruba religious traditions with Roman Catholic saints. Cruz also popularized Cuban classic arrangements like an adaptation of Jose Marti’s poem “Guantaramera,” and “Yerberito Moderno.” One interesting and mostly unknown story about the queen of Salsa is the fact that her career was launched by a communist radio station DJ named Mil Diez. His station in Havana was very popular and even ran a daily quiz on Marxism. The racist and conservative mainstream radio airwaves refused to play her music; it was the communists who launched her career [23].
There is no Salsa music without women. Victoria Hernandez was responsible for the musical education of some of Salsa’s greatest talents like the “King of the Timbales” Tito Puente. A Puerto Rican musician, Hernandez opened the first Puerto Rican-owned music store in NYC. She taught a whole new generation of future legends in el barrio like the young Tito. She was the sister of Puerto Rico’s most prolific composer, Rafael Hernandez [24].
While women artists in Salsa music during this time represented a small handful of the performers, women were active participants and equal contributors to Salsa music and culture. They were lead singers like Celia Cruz and La Lupe, composers like cousins Ernestina and Margarita Leucona, musicians like the all-women band Orquesta Anacaona, dancers like Mambo dance queen Millie Donay, historians of the genre like Frances R. Aparicio, and music teachers like Victoria Hernandez. Dr. Cristobal Diaz Ayala estimates the active participation of more than 270 Women in Afro-Latin music since the 1500s [25]. For this reason, Salseras need to be celebrated and given credit for popularizing the genre even while struggling upstream against the patriarchal male-dominated music industry.
The people’s poet
There is no doubt amongst Salsa fans that Panamanian Ruben Blades was the poster child of revolutionary and politically charged lyrics. He wrote songs criticizing capitalist consumerism like “Plastico” from his 1978 joint album with trombonist Willie Colon, Siembra (the number one selling salsa album of all time), as well as songs celebrating liberation struggles and armed guerillas in the Latin America like “Juan Gonzalez” from his 1970 debut album De Panama a Nueva York. His most famous tune, “Tiburón,” was also an anti-imperialist anthem, released in 1981 on a second collaborative album with Willie Colon titled Canciones Del Solar de los Aburridos. The song centers on a shark that is roaming the shore. Every time the shark gets close, it is warned. At first it is told to respect the flag, another time that Spanish is the only language spoken on this island and so on. Then all of the sudden, the artist calls on people to fight back against the shark if it gets close, so that it learns its lesson that it cannot mess with the Caribbean. As long as people stay united, they will defeat the shark [26].
The shark in this tune represents U.S. imperialism in Latin America. Since the racist and imperialist Monroe Doctrine of 1823, the U.S. has led coups, assassinations, and military invasions in Latin America. “Tiburón” serves as a warning to U.S. imperialism that it is not welcome in the region and that the people are ready to fight back and force the shark off our shores. The popularity of Ruben Blades’ music was so threatening to the ruling elite that Blades was banned from local radio in Miami and received death threats from right-wing Cubans [27].
Ruben Blades’ collaborative partner on Canciones Del Solar de los Aburridos, Willie Colon released a track in 1989 from his solo album Legal Alien – Top Secrets titled “El Gran Varon.” While the record was released well after the Fania era, the song is noteworthy because it was released in the middle of the AIDS epidemic heavily affecting the LGBTQ community who were left to die by the bigoted right-wing Reagan administration. The song is a story of a Puerto Rican trans woman who moves to New York and contracts AIDS during the epidemic. She is then surprised by a visit from her father who was unaware of her transition. He completely rejects her and goes back to Puerto Rico with intentions to never reach out again. She dies alone in a hospital bed and when the father reflects on his actions and tries to reach back out to his daughter, it was too late, she had passed away [28]. The song was an important challenge to the sexual orientation and gender identity norms in the Latino community and society as a whole. A lesson can be found in the hook of the song, “Nature cannot be corrected, a tree that grows bent, will never straighten out its trunk” [29]. Matters of sexuality and gender identity are not choices, mistakes, or “deviant” behavior, but part of nature, Colon insists.
The Lenin of Salsa
While most of the artists we have explored were exploited by the industry and never truly enjoyed the true fruits of their labor, they enjoyed much global success and became household names in Latin America and the world. As was mentioned in the beginning of the article, Fania tolerated the revolutionary and politically charged lyrics of the music as long as the money was coming in. But there was one artist in particular that was blacklisted by the industry because he went too far. That artist was Frankie Dante.
Born Lenin Francisco Domingo Cerda in the Dominican Republic, Frankie Dante, “The Lenin of Salsa,” named after the leader of the October Revolution, led an insurrection inside of the label and took Fania Records and the music industry head on. His music unapologetically spoke out against injustice, war and imperialism, inequality, and repression. Frankie came out firing right from the start. On one of his first albums titled Different Directions, he composed a song titled “Paz” or peace in Spanish. The song came out in 1970, at the peak of the Vietnam War. It is an anti-war song, where Frankie asks people to wake up! Demanding peace, he sings that the people don’t want war. He also calls on people to practice solidarity with each other [30]. Frankie was no pacifist; in a later album called Los Salseros de Acero, Frankie issues a warning to the system of exploitation and its crony politicians on the track titled, “Ciencia Política.” He sings “We want to change the system removing all the clowns, if the politicians don’t change, destruction will come very soon” [31].
Frankie even had a plan for the new system he wanted to see flourish. In his 1972 joint album with Fania Legend and lead pianist for the Fania All-Stars Larry Harlow titled Con Larry Harlow, the song “Dante Presidente” lists the things he would do if he was the president: there would be no wars or invading armies; taxes would be lowered, and the money would be used for the betterment of the community; and musicians would get a raise [32]. When you listen to Frankie Dante’s music from start to finish, his discography sounds as much like a mass political education program as a body of music.
Frankie Dante was loved by his peers and Salsa listeners throughout the world. But for the executives at Fania records, his music presented too much of a risk. For this reason, his 1976 record titled “Me Quieren Crucificar,” or “they want to crucify me” in Spanish, from his album titled Los Salseros de Acero, was a protest against threats by Fania executives who wanted him to curtail the overtly leftist political content of his lyrics and shut down his demands for fairer contracts for artists. The song goes, “They want to crucify me, hurt me, eliminate me, but we will stay here, Flamboyan (his band), always forward (Pa’lante)” [33]. The track truly captures the essence of Frankie Dante; even under attack he was defiant.
Frankie’s contract was ended early by Fania and his music was barely played on the radio. The label basically blacklisted him and he never got the praise he deserved for his talent and his art [34]. While the Lenin of Salsa was not given the credit he deserves by the industry, songs like “Paz,” “Ciencia Política,” and “Venceremos” — an homage to the famous slogan of the Cuban Revolution — are still heard and celebrated in the cantinas of La Calle 8 (Salsa bars) in Barranquilla and other poor and working-class neighborhoods of Latin America. They tried to silence him, but the music and legacy of Lenin Francisco Domingo Cerda was vindicated by the same oppressed and marginalized people of the world who were the protagonists of his music.
Nuestra cosa, “Our Latin thing”
The debate over whether Salsa is its own form or is better understood as an adaptation of traditional Cuban sound is a concrete example of the contradictory relationship between the cultural resistance of Salsa music and the capitalist music industry it resisted.
Some music scholars and even Salsa musicians, suggest that the Salsa, popularized by Fania, was the imitation and commodification of Afro-Cuban music by Fania, a U.S. based capitalist record label, aligned with U.S. imperialist goals to further isolate Cuba. Cuban music legends like Mario Bauza, Perez Prado, and Puerto Rican Tito Puente, characterized Salsa as an imitation of Afro-Cuban music because of its strong influence deriving from the Cuban son and rumba, among other Cuban rhythms. Cuban music historian Mayra Martinez characterized Salsa music as an attempt by the U.S. capitalist music industry to co-opt and internationally market Cuban rhythms disguised as Salsa, while at the same time preventing Cuba from competing because of the U.S. imposed embargo [36].
Fania art director and MC Izzy Sanabria, in an interview with music historian Vernon Boggs, agrees with Martinez’s claim that Fania coopted Cuban music, but claims it was not their intention [37]. Izzy adds that while Salsa is Cuban-based, the sound that started in NYC in the 70s had a faster tempo, and it was a mix of multiple cultural sounds from the Caribbean and Latin America, influenced by Afro-Cuban rhythms of the 40s, 50s, and even 60s. He meant the term Salsa to be used the same way rock ‘n’ roll and jazz is used. Izzy claims that Fania benefited from the commodification of Salsa because there was a huge demand for Salsa during the 70s and since blockaded Cuba was not able to meet it, Fania and Masucci stepped in and filled the void [38].
While it is clear that the capitalist U.S. music industry, led by Fania, took advantage of the void left by Cuba because of the embargo to commodify and market Salsa music as “Our Latin Thing,” Salsa in many ways became a new thing, an evolution of a variety of rhythms, mainly from Cuba, but culturally adapted to the specific conditions of el barrio in NYC. Aparicio explains that Salsa was “characterized by a specific use of rhythms, instrumentation, themes, and lyrics and by a particular historical development that is informed by Afro-Cuban music but nonetheless diverges from it” [39]. Music historian Cesar Miguel Rondon argues that there were key differences from a musical standpoint between Salsa music and the traditional Cuban sound, including the addition of a two-line-up brass section, characterized by two trombones. This was popularized by Palmieri and gave salsa more of a big band Jazz feel [40]. Lyrically, Salsa depicted the reality of Latino immigrants, particularly Puerto Ricans, in NYC during the 1970s, and later that of the urban poor of Latin America in general.
The characterization of Salsa as an imitation of Cuban music erases the participation and contributions of the Puerto Rican and Latin American artists discussed throughout this series. Salsa developed from the Cuban mambo ballrooms to street corner performances in NYC with a generation of mostly Puerto Rican American musicians like Willie Colon and Palmieri; Salsa came to include later generations throughout Latin America like Colombian Joe Arroyo and Venezuelan Oscar De Leon, who further innovated and developed Salsa by fusing rhythms native from their regions, as well as the content of their lyrics specific to the conditions of the neighborhoods they grew-up in. “The musicians as artistic subjects changed, as did the location of this music and its originally intended and ideal audience” [41].
Salsa? More like ketchup
The first part of this series discussed how music or any other form we might call artistic or cultural is not inherently or inevitably revolutionary or even political. Instead, the political content and utility of music are the direct result of the class struggle. What made Salsa music of this period revolutionary was the political moment and class struggle on the ground that it surfaced in relation to, characterized by the period of the civil rights and the militant Black Liberation struggle of the 1960s and 1970s. For this reason, it should come to no surprise to anyone that starting in the 1980s, as a result of the military defeat of the militant Black liberation struggle, Salsa’s revolutionary and strong political messaging began to wane.
There were other reasons for the fall of the hard-driven revolutionary Salsa of the 70s, like the dissolution of the Fania record label, replaced by a new neoliberal-modeled record label, and the emergence and popularity of other Latin musical genres. Ronald Reagan’s right-wing presidency ushered in a period of conservatism characterized by the introduction of the so called “war on drugs” and the prison industrial complex as a way to politically defeat the gains of the civil rights movement. While 70s Salsa’s hard-driven revolutionary sound served as a soundtrack of the revolution, during the counter-revolutionary period of the 80s, the successors of the Fania label saw it as an opportunity to maximize profits by producing Salsa music of a slower tempo, with lyrics mainly discussing love and heartbreak. Salsa was not hot and spicy anymore; it was more like ketchup. This was the capitalist music industry’s way to ultimately co-opt and reconcile the contradictions presented by the earlier revolutionary period of the genre.
The Salsa executive throne was inherited by business manager Ralph Mercado Jr. who founded RMM in the 1980s and managed the careers of most of Salsa’s top talent, club bookings, and tours. After Masucci dissolved the Fania label, Mercado built an empire on top of the ashes. While Masucci and Fania executives made millions by robbing artists of their royalties and exploiting them to the bone, the economics of the trade still cut into the profits of Masucci, making it difficult to maintain profits, necessary to capitalist enterprise. Even though most musicians were paid very low wages, forced to work full-time day jobs during the day and then play until the wee hours of the morning just to make an honest living, the label still had to pay for the salary of his or her other band members, often ten or more musicians, including the higher salaries of the bandleader or lead vocalist.
Recording studio time, travel and lodging expenses, among other necessary expenses, added up. One thing that made those Fania records pristine was the spontaneous and improvisational nature of some of their recording sessions, where the band members recorded basically a “live” version of the song in the studio. But the costs of producing music in this way, while worth it from a fan and artist’s perspective, comes with the increased likelihood of human error, leading to having to do retakes, requiring more paid studio time. Ralph Mercado built a model to reduce costs and maximize profits by recording Salsa albums with in-house studio musicians, recording each instrument separately to create a commercially successful sound that became basically an assembly line to make music [41]. What a sacrilege! Imagine buying an LP of the great pianist Palmieri, only to later find out he didn’t in fact record the studio version of the album.
Ralph Mercado’s model not only changed how music was recorded and produced but also the feel and lyrical content of Salsa. His label introduced the brand of “Salsa Romantica,” which took over starting in the 1980s. This romantic salsa ballad style of music is detested by real Salseros everywhere. The music is mellowed down, characterized by a brand of Salsa where the words “amor” and “corazon” can be found in almost every title and every song. Salsa was made docile, confined to the rigid and commercial studio sound, robbed of its raw and rebellious nature, stripped of its sense of community and solidarity, and centered around the individual. This individual was embodied by the lead vocalist, who became the center of attention and made all other band members obsolete [42]. From the label’s perspective, there was no more need for legendary musicians like the great Palmieri (piano), Bobby Valentin (Bass), Ray Barreto (Conga), or Chocolate Armenteros (trumpet). Ralph Mercado used neoliberal tactics to downsize production while still raking in profits.
The music not only got slower and “safer,” but the artists also got whiter. The salsa of the 1970s was not only revolutionary but the music and the artists were a true representation of its Afro-Cuban roots. With the exception of Ruben Blades and Willie Colon, all of the artists we featured in this series are Black. On the other hand, the new generation of artists introduced by Mercado — son of Black Dominican and Puerto Rican parents — to lead this new romantic salsa movement were mostly all light skin Latinos like Frankie Ruiz, Eddie Santiago, Jerry Rivera, Lalo Rodriguez, Gilberto Santa Rosa, and others. Most of them were also not trained musicians. This became evident when a former freestyle (electronic/house dance music of the 80s) singer named Marc Anthony, confused his studio band live on stage when he tried to clap the clave. He remains the poster child of romantic salsa to this day [43].
Conclusion
Who killed Salsa? Is Salsa dead? Were Masucci and later Ralph Mercado the victors in the struggle between hegemonic interests versus cultural resistance? What Salsa is better: Salsa of the ‘70s or Salsa romantica of the ‘80s, and on? Ultimately, the answers to these questions lie in who has the last word in the shifting balance of forces. As revolutionaries, our main task is to build a movement that makes use of all the tools in our arsenal, including art and music, to win the minds and hearts of the people over to our side.
Salsa is a perfect example of how art forms can be used by both the oppressed and the oppressor to either emancipate or subjugate. The Salsa of Fania in the 70s represented an example of how the oppressed made political use of Salsa to struggle for liberation. The Salsa produced in the 80s on the other hand represented an example of how capitalists always try to commercialize and co-opt the very same art form once it becomes popular. But one thing we must remember is that this process is not linear and it is filled with contradictions. In fact, the ongoing process of artistic creativity and revolutionary potential and capitalist cooptation and political defanging often mimics the ebb and flow of the movement and class struggle on the ground.
Hip-hop heads and Salseros, like the author of this series, often narrow our focus to a binary depiction of music as politically conscious vs. commercial. In other words, good vs. bad. This binary fails to recognize the contradictions that can still surface in any particular musical epoch [45]. For example, this series started with the anti-colonial and anti-slavery anthem of Joe Arroyo, “No le pegue a la negra,” a song that came out in 1986, well into the romantic Salsa era. And even during the 70s Fania era of Salsa, there were plenty of “commercial” songs about love, including misogynistic ones. To relegate romantic Salsa as merely a victim of capitalist hegemonic interests steals from the art form “its powers for creativity, cultural resistance and reaffirmation, and possibly social change,” while at the same time also ignoring the conditions on the ground. Willie Colon’s 1989 “El Gran Varon” is an example of this. For this reason, we say Salsa is not dead. Its revolutionary classics are still played in the barrios of Latin America along with other evolutions of the music. Salsa was an explosion that left the Bronx and reached as far as Japan. In Nicaragua, the music of Luis Godoy made use of Salsa to celebrate the Sandinista revolution. In Venezuela, Salsa Band Grupo Madera’s “Uh Ah Chavez no se va” became the protest anthem against the attempted coups of U.S. imperialism. And in Cuba, Cuban Salsa, sometimes called Timba, evolved into a unique musical movement of its own, further enhanced by the Revolution’s focus on art and culture, celebrating the long tradition and legacy of the rhythms that gave Salsa its roots.
While we commemorated the anniversary of a monumental concert that launched a global cultural movement in part one, this entry is important in the context of intensifying anti-immigrant bigotry and repression. We should recognize the role of art and culture in our movements and how the revolutionary legacy of Salsa music, and other art forms at the disposal of revolutionaries, can be a useful tool for liberation.
References
[1] Juan Flores, From Bomba to Hip-Hop: Puerto Rican Culture and Latino Identity (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), 80-82.[2] Joe Cuba Sextet. CD. “Bang! Bang! Wanted Dead Or Alive (Bang Bang Push Push Push),” Tico, 1965.
[3] Vernon W. Boggs, Salsiology: Afro-Cuban Music and the Evolution of Salsa in New York City (Greenwood Press, 1992), 103.
[4] Leslie Gourse, “Still Jumpin’ With My Boy Sid,” The New York Times, 8 August 1971.
[5] Boggs, Salsiology, 244.
[6] Ibid., 191.
[7] Flores, From Bomba to Hip-Hop, 107.
[8] Leon Gast, Director, Celia Cruz and the Fania Allstars in Africa, Allegro, 1974, 54 minutes. Available here.
[9] Boggs, Salsiology, 231.
[10] Frances R. Aparicio, Listening to Salsa: Gender, Latin Popular Music, and Puerto Rican Cultures (Hanover: University Press of New England, 1998), 79.
[11] Ibid, 77.
[12] Flores, From Bomba to Hip-Hop, 97.
[13] Jaime Torres, Cada Cabeza Es Un Mundo La Historia de Héctor Lavoe (San Juan, Puerto Rico: Mariana Editores, 2007), 221-33.
[14] Roberto Roena Y Su Apollo Sound. CD. “Con los Pobres Estoy,” Pa’ Fuera. Fania, 1974.
[15] Hannah Dickenson and Curry Malott, “What is Alienation? The Development and Legacy of Marx’s Early Theory,” Liberation School, 07 December 2021. Available here.
[16] Cheo Feliciano. Juan Albañil. CD. “Sentimiento, Tú,” Fania, 1980.
[17] Ibid.
[18] Eddie Palmieri. CD. Justicia. Justicia, Fania, 1969.
[19] Felipe Luciano, “Memory of a Wintry Trip to Sing Sing,” The New York Times, 25 June 1972.
[20] Pete “El Conde” Rodriguez. CD. “La Abolición. Este Negro Si Es Sabroso.” Fania, 1976.
[21] Pete “El Conde” Rodriguez. CD. “Babaila,” El Conde. Fania, 1976.
[22] Ismael Rivera. CD. “Las Tumbas. Soy Feliz,” Fania, 1975.
[23[ Carol Rosenberg, “An Untold Chapter in the Life of Celia Cruz,” The Miami Herald, 25 July 2004.
[24] Boggs, Salsiology, 322.
[25] Ibid., 110.
[26] Ruben Blades & Willie Colon. CD. “Tiburón. Canciones del Solar de los Aburridos.” Fania, 1981.
[27] Peter Lamarche Manuel and Kenneth M. Bilby, Caribbean Music from Rumba to Reggae (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2009), 97.
[28] Willie Colon. CD. “El Gran Varon, Legal Alien-Top Secrets,” Fania, 1989.
[29] Ibid.
[30] Frankie Dante and Orquesta Flamboyan. CD. “Paz, Different Directions,” Fania, 1970.
[31] Frankie Dante and Orquesta Flamboyan. CD. “Ciencia Política. Los Salseros de Acero. Fania, 1976.
[32] Frankie Dante and Orquesta Flamboyan, Larry Harlow. CD. “Presidente Dante. Con Larry Harlow,” Fania, 1972.
[33] Frankie Dante and Orquesta Flamboyan. CD. “Me Quieren Crucificar. Los Salseros de Acero,” Fania, 1976.
[34] Rondón, César Miguel, Frances R. Aparicio, and Jackie White. The Book of Salsa a Chronicle of Urban Music from the Caribbean to New York City (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008) 161.
[35] Ibid, 25.
[36] Aparicio, Listening to Salsa, 79.
[37] Boggs, Salsiology, 189.
[38] Ibid., 189-90.
[39] Aparicio, Listening to Salsa, 67.
[40] Ibid., 80.
[41] Peter Lamarche Manuel, Kenneth M. Bilby, and M. Largey, Caribbean Currents: Caribbean Music from Rumba to Reggae (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2006), 102-104.
[42] Ibid., 108-109.
[43] Ibid., 50.
