Afro-Latin Soul and Hip-Hop

This chapter explores the history of African and Spanish musical fusions. In terms of race relations in the New World specifically, music has frequently been the occasion for an exchange of ideas and sounds that has brought together various cultures, transforming conflicting and clashing relations into harmonious streams of sound. Hence, lingering affinities from medieval Al-Andalus have been the inspiration for African and Spanish conjunctions and collaborations in modern times and have resulted in novel, hybrid inventions, everything from salsa and samba to funk and hip-hop. This chapter focuses on hip-hop within this context, though it also takes a look at the cultural soil of Latin America to appreciate the roots and branches of African and Spanish blends in the New World.