Born among black slaves on sugar plantations, Cuba's rumba has since become a national icon almost as renown as its cigars or amateur boxers and two years ago was designated by UNESCO as an intangible ...

On a typical Saturday afternoon in the Havana courtyard of El Palenque, drummers coax conga rumba rhythms into the air above the crowd. A thousand miles away, Sundays in Central Park also mean rumba.

AS YOU CLIMB the dimly lit staircase at La Crèche nightclub in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, you may hear a man’s high, lilting voice drifting from the rooftop. There, ...

African music traveled to the New World with slavery, only to return to Africa in the 1930’s and 40’s via 78 rpm phonograph records, broadcast by Radio Congo Belge in Léopoldville (now Kinshasha), ...

Students will listen to music from Ghana, Nigeria, Cuba, and Puerto Rico to learn how this polyrhythmic tradition followed Africans to the Caribbean as a result of the transatlantic slave trade.

Chicago-based journalist Catalina Maria Johnson hosts the 15th installment of World Cafe's Latin Roots music series. Johnson writes in Spanish and English for publications such as HOY, Revista ...