Latin Music and Its Influence on American Culture: A Cause and Effect Essay

This essay discusses how Latin Music have changed the American culture, especially since the early 1960’s era of Latin Rock legends such as Carlos Santana up to the more resent Latin Hit Singles such as ‘Despacito’ by Louis Fonsi.

Running head: CAUSE AND EFFECT
ESSAY
-Cause and Effect
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1CAUSE AND EFFECT
Introduction:
Latin Music is an umbrella term that is used to identify various musical styles
originating from Spanish and Portuguese speaking nations such as the Latin Americas,
Portugal and Spain. In the United States, Latin Music comprises of songs which are sung in
Spanish and has been rapidly gaining popularity over the last five decades (Hernandez). With
an increase in the rise in the Hispanic population and the advent of several skilled Latin
musicians in USA as well as word wide, Latin Music have become symbolic to the popular
culture and have often been associated with the expressions of having ‘fun’ and ‘enjoyment’
(Lewis). According to musicologists, the upbeat and energetic music of Latin music makes it
fun to listen to, gives relief from stress and helps people to relax and have a good time as a
result of which it have significantly influenced the American culture (Corti).
The aim of this essay is to discuss how Latin Music have changed the American
culture, especially since the early 1960’s era of Latin Rock legends such as Carlos Santana up
to the more resent Latin Hit Singles such as ‘Despacito’ by Louis Fonsi.
Discussion:
Because of the unique musical style of Latin music, it has been significantly related
with various dancing styles, as the Latin style beats and grooves provides the best
accompaniments for dancing. Also, Latin music sets a happier tune and melody lines which
became hugely popular in United States during the 1960’s and 1970’s at the heights of the
‘Hippie Era’ (Miller). While bands such as Jefferson’s Airplane, Lynyard Skynyard, Grateful
Dead, Creedance and Clearwater Revival, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Joan Baez were
experimenting and incorporating blues, country and rock and roll styles into the music, Latin
legends such as Carlos Santana started using Latin and Bossa Nova based elements into the
music. By 1969, New York became one of the most prominent destinations for highly

2CAUSE AND EFFECT
prominent hippie era bands who were drawn to the famous Woodstock Open Air Festival that
went on for four days of celebrating various styles and genre of music. The audiences also
showed more openness towards a wider variety of musical styles such as Latin or even Indian
Classical (Phuong; Daley).
One of the most famous performance was by Carlos Santana who masterfully used
both Latino, Samba, Bossa Nova styles with contemporary rock n roll styles and immediately
caught the attention of several musicians as well as audiences alike (Bush). Carlos Santana,
who was himself influenced by Blues legends such as BB King, T Bone Walker, Javier Batiz
and John Lee incorporated the elements of rhythm and blues along with contemporary rock
and roll sound and infused it with Latino Style music to create a unique amalgamation of
musical genre that captivated the American Music culture (Santana). Pop culture soon started
having its distinct Latino influence, featuring prominent Hispanic and Latino musicians being
featured in the Billboards and winning music awards. Singers such as Gloria Estefan and
Ricky Marten captured the stage during the 1990’s and Latino music kept getting more
prominent in the American Culture. By the 80’s and 90’s Latino styled themes could be
found in Movies such as Dirty Dancing (1987), Salsa (1988) and Dance with Me (1998).
Latino Music kept propping up in several dance scenes in the films and in most the cases, the
Latino music would be in the form of upbeat and fun songs that people can dance to. The
music also provided the people a glimpse of the colorful Hispanic culture which is quite
unique from the American culture (Darrow). Even big budget animated films such as Rio 2
(2014) or Coco (2017) features an amazing assortment of Latino music, showing that the
American culture have travelled a long way into incorporating Latin culture into the
American popular media. In the early 60’s talented Latino musicians such as Julio Iglesias or
Paco De Lucia were mostly had to live in the shadows of contemporary artists such as Elvis
Presley, Frank Sinatra or Billie Holiday. However with the Hippie movement, there was a

3CAUSE AND EFFECT
significant departure in the American popular culture (Kun). As Carlos Santana once pointed
out that the 60’s was a great change in music with artists such as Jimi Hendrix, Doors and
The Beatles constantly redefining the boundaries of music, experimenting with various styles
and doing what Salvador Dali did for painting, which is delving into the subconscious part of
mind, making music more primal. Such appetite and penchant for experimentation lead to a
revolution in Latin music through the incorporation of rhythm and blues as well as rock roll
styles to develop a new flavor of the Latino music which most now consider as the ‘Samba
Dance’ music (Miller).
The effect of such an infusion can be seen still now through massively popular tracks
such as ‘Despacito’ by Louis Fonsi which has become Billboard Hit and a YouTube
sensation. The influence was massive enough to have spread across the globe, as did the
many other Latin artists and musicians before (Trust). The rhythm and melody of the Latino
music have percolated through many cultures and countries including America. Ricky Martin
was hired by FIFA to sing their theme song for the year 1998 in France while Shakira was
featured in the FIFA World Cup 2010, showing how much Latin music have become popular
around the world (Nauright). Carlos Santana has performed in the super bowl, as well as
several other American sports and music events, and have also have featured in the famous
cartoon sitcom series The Simpsons.
This rise in popularity of the Latin style music can be attributed to how the musical
style have imbibed in the elements of musical styles which were already popular and
combined with a Spanish or Latin style elements and to incredibly talented artists and
musicians who have taken the music to new heights, constantly experimenting and infusing
different styles to create something new. Be it in the form of Carlos Santana working with
bands such as Aerosmith, Dave Matthews Band, Everlast, Rob Thomas or Shakira, or in the
form of ‘Despacito’, the wheels set in motion at Woodstock 1969 helped in a huge

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diversification of popular music in America and changed the horizons of what popular music
represented for the generations to come. It was pivotal in the increase of appreciation of
various new styles of music such as Latino Rock and helped in the increase of popularity of
several other Latino musicians who started getting more attention and appreciation for their
work and Latino music was featured more and more frequently in films and main stream
media (Sntana).
Conclusion:
The Woodstock 1969 and the ‘Hippie’ era in the United States have seen a significant
diversification in popular culture, with many musicians experimenting with their art to create
new musical styles. Such new varieties of music were hugely popular during that time, and
one particular genre among those styles was the Latino music. This style was essentially a
mix of rhythm and blues, rock n roll and Latin music elements which was perfected by artists
such as Carlos Santana. Since then many other artists have also emerged from the Latin
music scene, many also got global fame, and have represented United States on several
occasions. This shows how a single concert can forever change a culture, and how the culture
itself can evolve towards harmony.

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References:
Bush, Elizabeth. "When Angels Sing: The Story of Rock Legend Carlos Santana by Michael
Mahin." Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books 72.1 (2018): 18-19.
Corti, Berenice. "Territories, maps, and musical reconfigurations from the South. Thinking
about Latin American jazz." REVISTA MUSICAL CHILENA 72.229 (2018): 13-32.
Daley, Mike. "Land of the Free Jimi Hendrix: Woodstock Festival, August 18, 1969."
Performance and Popular Music. Routledge, 2017. 52-57.
Darrow, Courtney. "Carlos Santana: Using Music to Unite Communities." (2014).
Hernandez, Deborah Pacini. "Race, ethnicity and the production of Latin/o popular music."
Global Repertoires. Routledge, 2017. 57-72.
Kun, Josh, ed. The Tide Was Always High: The Music of Latin America in Los Angeles. Univ
of California Press, 2017.
Lewis, John. "Nu Yorica! Culture Clash In New York City: Experiments In Latin Music
1970-77." Uncut 219 (2015): 97.
Miller, Timothy. "Hippie Homesteaders: Arts, Crafts, Music, and Living on the Land in West
Virginia." (2015): 173-175.
Nauright, John. "‘Sing a Powerful Song’: the Saw Doctors, sports and singing Irish
identities." Sport in Society 17.3 (2014): 388-401.
Phuong, Thuy DOAN. "Flower children of fortune: the Idealism of Hippie Culture in the
1960s and Today." (2016).

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Santana, Carlos. "Santana and the Metaphysics of Tone." The Relentless Pursuit of Tone:
Timbre in Popular Music (2018): 212.
Trust, Gary. "Luis Fonsi & Daddy Yankee's' Despacito,'Featuring Justin Bieber, Hits No. 1
on Billboard Hot 100." Billboard. Retrieved May 16 (2017).