Salsa music Caribbean, and New York cultures and musics, with no mention of Cuba. In one scene, the Afro-Cuban folkloric genres of batá and rumba are shown being performed in Puerto Rico, implying that they originated there. In advancing the concept of salsa as a musical "sauce", containing many different ingredients from various cultures mixed together, some point to the occasional use of non-Cuban forms in salsa, such as the Puerto Rican bomba. The percentage of salsa compositions based in non-Cuban genres is low though, and despite an openness to experimentation and a willingness to absorb non-Cuban influences, - such as Jazz
Salsa music holds the rhythm together. The clave patterns originated in sub-Saharan African music traditions, where they serve the same function as they do in salsa. The two most common five-stroke African bell parts, which are also the two main clave patterns used in Afro-Cuban music, are known to salsa musicians as "son clave" and "rumba clave". Son and rumba clave can be played in either a triple-pulse ( or ) or duple-pulse (, or ) structure. Salsa uses duple-pulse son clave almost exclusively. The contemporary Cuban practice is to write clave in a single measure of . Clave is written in