Sin Negro No Hay Guaguanco El Bugaloo

Bugaloo linked Black and Brown neighbors & coworkers in fused musical unison.

Much like my own family throughout the 1940’s and 50’s, Puerto Ricans from the island poured into New York with a great deal of pride and deep musical/cultural roots. By the 1960’s however, young Nuyoricans showed only a tepid interest in their parent’s music. Distinctly Boriqua, they also identified with Motown and the soulful music of an increasing consciousness among colonized people, now in the urban ghetto. Just as iterations of Jamaican homegrown musical styles quickly evolved from ska to rocksteady to dub to what we now know as Reggae, Salsa music followed a similar genesis. Today’s musical biscuit gives a big shout-out to the Spanish Harlem of the late 1960’s until the early 70’s, when young New York City-based Latin and Black musicians gave birth to Latin boogaloo, setting in motion a musical explosion that soon became “the biggest thing ” in all the clubs in town.