Latin Music

Latin music includes the music of all countries in Latin America (and the Caribbean) and comes in many varieties. Latin America is home to musical styles such as the simple, rural conjunto music of northern Mexico, the sophisticated habanera of Cuba, the symphonies of Heitor Villa-Lobos, and the simple and moving Andean flute. Music has played an important part recently in Latin America's politics, the nueva canción movement being a prime example.

Latin music is very diverse, with the only truly unifying thread being the use of Latin-derived languages, predominately the Spanish language, the Portuguese language in Brazil, and to a lesser extent, Latin-derived Creole languages such as those found in Haiti. Although Spain and Portugal are not part of Latin America, Spanish music and Portuguese music and strongly cross-influenced with Latin music.

There are many diverse styles of Latin music, some of which constitutes Afro-American musical traditions, meaning that elements of European, African and indigenous music are fused. Spanish song forms, African rhythms, and European and African/Afro-American harmonies are major parts of tropical Latin music, as are the more modern genres such as rock, heavy-metal, punk, hip hop, jazz, reggae, and R&B.

Imported styles of popular music with a distinctively Latin style include Latin jazz, Argentine rock, Chilean rock, and Cuban and Mexican hip-hop, which are all based on styles from the United States (jazz, rock and roll and hip hop). Music from non-Latin parts of the Caribbean are also popular, especially Jamaican reggae and dub, Trinidadian calypso music and Antiguan Soca.

This description is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses materials from the Wikipedia article "Latin America music".