Editing Salsa music (section)

===1980s: Salsa expansion in Latin America and the birth of timba===
[[File:Oscar D Leon 2011.jpg|thumb|right|350px|Oscar D'Leon (2011).]]

During the 1980s, several Latin American countries, such as Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, Mexico and Panama, began producing their own salsa music.<ref>Steward 2000, pp. 379, 502</ref> Two of the biggest stars from this period are [[Oscar D'León]] from Venezuela and [[Joe Arroyo]] from Colombia.<ref>Washburne 2008 p. 182-183.</ref> Other popular acts are [[Fruko y sus Tesos]], [[Grupo Niche]] and [[Ruben Blades|Rubén Blades]] (now as a soloist).

During this period Cuba received international salsa musicians for the first time.

<blockquote>Venezuelan salsa star Oscar D'León's 1983 tour of Cuba is mentioned prominently by every Cuban I've ever interviewed on the subject. Rubén Blades' album ''Siembra'' was heard everywhere on the island throughout the mid-80s and has been quoted extensively in the guías and coros of everyone from Van Van's Mayito Rivera (who quotes [Blades'] 'Plástico' in his guías on the 1997 classic ''Llévala a tu vacilón''), to El Médico de la Salsa (quoting another major hook from 'Plástico'—'se ven en la cara, se ven en la cara, nunca en el corazón'—in his final masterpiece before leaving Cuba, ''Diós sabe'').<ref>Moore, Kevin 2011 p. 73. ''Beyond Salsa Piano'' v. 11. ''César "Pupy" Pedroso: The Music of Los Van Van, Part 2''. Santa Cruz, CA: Moore Music/Timba.com.{{ISBN|1460965426}}</ref></blockquote>

Prior to D'León's performance, many Cuban musicians rejected the salsa movement, considering it a bad imitation of Cuban music. Some people say that D'León's performance gave momentum to a "salsa craze" that brought back some of the older templates and motivated the development of [[timba]].

Before the birth of timba, Cuban dance music lived a period of high experimentation among several bands like the charangas: [[Los Van Van]], Orquesta Ritmo Oriental, and Orquesta Revé; the conjuntos: [[Adalberto Alvarez]] y Son 14, [[Conjunto Rumbavana]] and Orquesta Maravillas de Florida; and the jazz band [[Irakere]]. 
<ref name="pims2">{{cite web|url=https://www.timba.com/encyclopedia_pages/67|title=Roots of timba|access-date=16 April 2021}}</ref>

Timba was created by musicians of [[Irakere]] who later formed [[NG La Banda]] under the direction of Jose Luis "El Tosco" Cortez. Many timba songs are more related to main-stream salsa than its Cuban predecessors earlier in the decade. For example, the song "La expresiva" (of [[NG La Banda]]) uses typical salsa timba/bongo bell combinations. The tumbadoras (congas) play elaborate variations on the son montuno-based tumbao, rather than in the songo style. For this reason some Cuban musicians of this period like [[Manolito y su Trabuco]], Orquesta Sublime, and [[Irakere]] referred to this late-80s sound as ''salsa cubana'', a term which for the first time, included Cuban music as a part of salsa movement.<ref name="Mauleón 1999, p. 80"/> In the mid-1990s California-based Bembé Records released CDs by several Cuban bands, as part of their ''salsa cubana series''.

Nonetheless, this style included several innovations. The bass tumbaos were busier and more complex than tumbaos typically heard in NY salsa. Some [[guajeos]] were inspired by the "harmonic displacement" technique of the Cuban jazz pianist [[Gonzalo Rubalcaba]]. Curiously, it was in Cuba where [[hip hop music|hip hop]] and salsa first began to meet. For example, many breakdown sections in [[NG La Banda]]'s album ''En la calle'' are a combination of [[guaguancó]] and hip hop rhythms.

During this period, Cuban musicians had more of an impact on jazz than salsa in the United States. Even though the [[Mariel boatlift]] took hundreds of Cuban musicians to the US, many of them were astonished to hear what sounded to them like Cuban music from the 1950s. Cuban conguero Daniel Ponce summarized this sentiment: "When the Cubans arrived in New York, they all said 'Yuk! This is old music.' The music and the feelings and arrangements [haven't] changed."<ref>Gerard 1989 p. 6. Daniel Ponce quote</ref> Nonetheless, there was an awareness of the modern Cuban styles in the US. Tito Puente recorded the Irakere composition "Bacalao con pan" (1980), and Rubén Blades covered Los Van Van's "Muevete" (1985). While the Puerto Rican bands Batacumbele (featuring a young [[Giovanni Hidalgo]]) and Zaperoko fully embraced [[songo music]] under the mentorship of [[Changuito]].

During the '80s other variants of salsa like [[salsa romantica|salsa romántica]] and [[salsa erotica|salsa erótica]] evolved, with lyrics dwelling on love and romance. Salsa romántica can be traced back to ''Noches Calientes'', a 1984 album by singer [[José Alberto "El Canario"]] with producer Louie Ramírez. Some viewed salsa romántica as a rhythmically watered-down version of the genre. Critics of ''salsa romántica'', especially in the late '80s and early '90s, called it a commercialized, diluted form of Latin pop, in which formulaic, sentimental love ballads were simply put to Afro-Cuban rhythms — leaving no room for classic salsa's brilliant musical improvisation, or for classic salsa lyrics that tell stories of daily life or provide social and political commentary. Some artists of these styles include Ómar Alfann, Palmer Hernández and Jorge Luis Piloto.