Music of Puerto Rico centers. After the island was taken over by Spain, the music and dance of Puerto Rico consisted of a combination of the harmonious musical styles that are borrowed from Spanish, African, and other European cultures, creating Puerto Rico's signature style of Latin dance. Salsa is a Spanish word that means sauce. It refers to the mixture of different rhythms composed of different Latin, African and Caribbean dances. Salsa is said to be first created around the 1960s and became popular to the non-Latino world drastically. The salsa dance is similar to the mambo dance. Salsa dancing is structured in six
Salsa music or clave half is represented within a single measure. The antecedent half has three strokes and is referred to as the "three-side" of clave in the parlance of salsa. In Cuban popular music, the first three strokes of son clave are also known collectively as tresillo, a Spanish word meaning 'triplet' (three equal beats in the same time as two main beats). However, in the Cuban vernacular, the term refers to the figure shown below in the first measure. The consequent half (second measure) of clave has two strokes and is called the "two-side" by salsa musicians. The first measure