A Piece of Puerto Rican Bomba Music History
If you have less than 2 minutes and care about the Puerto Rican music rhythm of Bomba, here’s a great snippet of Bomba history.
A main Puerto Rican newspaper published a short article on 5 early influencers of Bomba. It was from these Bomba pioneers that more contemporary musicians like Rafael Cortijo and Modesto Cepeda learned about Bomba.
For me the curious thing about this article is that I only knew the name of 1 of the 5 percussionists mentioned. I’m Puerto Rican and I have a Latin music blog, and although I don’t pretend to know more of music than the guy next door, I’m a bit of an amateur ethnomusicologist. Yet, in less time that it takes me to drink a cup of coffee, I learned a bit more about the Puerto Rican folkloric rhythm of Bomba.
I strongly believe that we need many more of these types of informative articles about our Latino cultural heritage. That’s a big part of why I started this Latin music blog; because I see a lack of information and dialog about our rich musical and cultural heritage. And this is a big part of our identities as Latinos.
So I hope that while you sip your next cup or “pocillo” of café con leche or café negro, you take a couple of minutes to read through the article I share below. You’ll be done with the article before you finish your café, and then you’ll have something else to share with the next generation of Latinos.
I hope you like it. Here it is: “Alegría y bomba e’ en la placita de Santurce”
Note: this images in this blog are from painting by the great artist from Loiza, Puerto Rico Samuel Lind. You can find more of his beautiful paintings HERE.
Below is a short news video clip of the legacy of one of the 5 pioneers of Bomba mentioned in the article; this one of Rafael Cepeda Atiles.
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[…] far we covered the origins and structure of Bomba. The next topic will be on the various types of Bomba that we […]
[…] Each Latin American country has several genres of music, and each may have several style variants. For example, the Puerto Rican rhythm of Bomba has developed many styles. These include the leró, yubá, cunyá, babú, and belén. These variants originated from the kind of dance that was performed with the Bomba. […]