Salsa music "Salsa" means 'sauce' in the Spanish language, and carries connotations of the spiciness common in Latin and Caribbean cuisine. In the 20th century, "salsa" acquired a musical meaning in both English and Spanish. In this sense "salsa" has been described as a word with "vivid associations". Cubans and Puerto Ricans in New York have used the term analogously to swing or soul music. In this usage "salsa" connotes a frenzied, "hot" and wild musical experience that draws upon or reflects elements of Latin culture, regardless of the style. Various music writers and historians have traced the use of "salsa" to
Music of Puerto Rico modernized form of Cuban/Puerto Rican-style dance music that was cultivated and rearticulated from the latter 1960s by Puerto Ricans in New York and, subsequently, in Puerto Rico and elsewhere. While salsa soon became an international genre, thriving in Colombia, Venezuela, and elsewhere, New York and Puerto Rico have remained its epicenters. Particularly prominent in the island itself were El Gran Combo, Sonora Ponceña, and Willie Rosario, as well as the more pop-oriented "salsa romántica" stars of the 1980s-90s. (For further information see the entry on "salsa music.") Other popular Nuyorican and Puerto Rican exposers of these genres have been Tito