A musical history of Latin New York, on Arte le …

When, in 1961, West Side Story hit the screens after having conquered Broadway, it was the entire Puerto Rican community of New York, ostracized and deprived of the American dream, which feverishly rose to visibility. From Spanish Harlem to the Bronx, where poverty, drugs and gangs are rife, Latin music and dance will then carry the identity revolution, the barrio blazing and undulating to Afro-Caribbean rhythms, led by “the king of the timpani “Tito Puente. Soon mixed with soul, jazz and blues from black neighbors, who share the suffering and stigma of racism, genres are multiplying: mambo, rumba, cha-cha-cha, merengue, boogaloo. All Hispanics in Central and South America then joined the movement. –