Introduction to Latin Pop

In most cases, the introduction of something new doesn't always come with good reviews. The crossing over of Latin music was not new, but it seemed to be one of those cases that with the right people it would be incredible. In the 1930s, Latino musicians had made their way to mainstream and looked into there acceptance in the U.S. which seemed logical for any new kind of cultural acceptance. Being accepted by an unknown place, one can say can cause good self esteem. In the beginning, Latin Pop started of with the “king of rhumba,” known as Xavier Cugat. He was one of the pioneers on to Latin Music as a genre and boy are we glad he did it. Through out the years, Latin Pop continued success and made it's mark in New York dance halls to hear Tito Puente and Eddie Palmieri, who in our opinions are two of the greatest in Latin music. They made dance halls bump to their beats and continued on to making Latin pop much more known. Ritchie Valens also added on to the sucess of Latino's and helped pave the way with his Spanish-language rock-and-roll hit with “La Bamba,” which everyone seems to know the chorus too with out even trying. In the 1960s the group Santana helped make Latino music more interesting by infusing their propulsive rock with Latin rhythms to make other styles of Latin music and help increase the hype into what Latin music was really about. Finally, who could forget about the Cuban-born singer Gloria Estefan who in the 1980's made her mark on the Latin music scene and broke through with Latin-flavoured pop hits. Without any of these elements and contributions Latino Music would seize to exist as we know it. (Wallenfeldt, 2013)