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
Salsa music in both New York and Puerto Rico. Along with the salsa-pop fusion of salsa romántica, the 1980s saw the combining elements of salsa with soul, R&B, and hip hop music. The dilution of Afro-Cuban rhythmic principles created problems for some. Washburne recounts: "As arrangers struggled to 'fit' these music styles into a salsa format, a variety of 'clave discrepancies,' or clashes, like in 'Cali Pachanguero,' often resulted. As the salsa style became more culturally diverse, Nuyorican and Puerto Rican traditionalists often reacted by emphatically positing clave as a representative of, or essential to, Puerto Rican cultural identity." In the mid-1980s