Timba

Timba

Overview

3 min read

Etymology and Naming

How a 1990s Havana dance music got its contested name

3 min read

Songo and Son Roots

3 min read

Timba: Emergence during Cuba's Special Period (1990s)

How post-Soviet economic collapse forged Cuba's defiant new dance-music genre

3 min read

Gear Changes and Bloques in Timba

How timba's abrupt rhythmic shifts and sectional blocks reshape the music — and the dancers who follow it.

4 min read

Gear Changes and the Presilla in Timba

How a full drum kit and shifting percussive gears set timba apart from salsa

3 min read

Timba Instrumentation and the Bloque

How the bass drum, trap kit, and broken-clave breaks set timba apart from salsa

3 min read

Afro‑Cuban Folkloric Fusion in Timba

How crisis-era Cuba turned rumba and Afro-Cuban folklore toward jazz, funk, and hip-hop

5 min read

Casino Roots and Despelote

The rhythmic and kinetic evolution from casino to despelote within Cuban timba

3 min read

Bamboleo: Timba's Powerhouse Voices

Lázaro Valdés's band and its star female singers redefined the timba front line

4 min read

La Charanga Habanera

David Calzado's Havana ensemble and the rise of timba

4 min read

Issac Delgado

A Cuban vocalist of the timba generation and the Caribbean salsa circuit

4 min read

La Charanga Habanera: Timba's Showmen

David Calzado's band turned 1990s Havana dance floors into spectacle

3 min read

Los Van Van: The Cuban Hit Machine That Forged Songo

Juan Formell’s orchestra revolutionized Cuban dance music and paved the way for timba

4 min read

Los Van Van and Juan Formell

How a Havana bassist's band invented songo and steered Cuban dance music toward timba

4 min read

Manolín, El Médico de la Salsa

The medical student turned timba superstar — and one of its most controversial voices

2 min read

NG La Banda: The Birth of Timba

José Luis "El Tosco" Cortés’s band crystallized — and named — Cuba’s explosive timba

4 min read

NG La Banda and José Luis "El Tosco" Cortés

3 min read

Paulito FG: The Melodist of Timba

One of timba's original innovators and a master of the romantic, phrasing-driven style

3 min read

Timba and Cuban Social Commentary

Musical Innovation and Critical Discourse in Post-Revolutionary Cuba

4 min read

Timba and the Special Period

Cuban dance music in the survival economy of the early 1990s

3 min read

Pupy y Los Que Son Son

A Cuban Timba Ensemble

3 min read

Timba: Common Misconceptions

Disentangling timba from salsa, from funk, and from Buena Vista nostalgia, and locating it in 1990s Cuba

5 min read

Timba: A Glossary of Terms

Key vocabulary of Cuba's funk-inflected dance music and its surrounding culture

3 min read

Bibliography and Sources for Timba

Musical Documentation and Historical Context

2 min read