Boogaloo, Baby!: They Made It Great

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The story of boogaloo begins with the migration of Puerto Rican, Cuban, African American, and Filipino families to the East Harlem neighborhood of New York City between 1930 and 1960. In the 1930s and 1940s, New York City stood at the center of jazz and swing music. During these decades, an increasing number of Puerto Rican and Cuban immigrants arrived in the area.1   Within the massive metropolis of New York, boogaloo emerged among the residents of East Harlem, also known as Spanish Harlem and El Barrio. These terms refer to an area of Manhattan roughly situated between the Harlem River to the north, the East River to the east, East 96th Street to the south, and 5th Avenue to the west.2  By the 1950s and 1960s, East Harlem became increasingly diverse as African American, Cuban, Puerto Rican, and Filipino families all moved to the same neighborhood. When kids mixed and mingled in the streets, musical styles blended. 3  From Mambo to Motown, none of the existing musical styles could accurately display the feelings of the rising generation. In this cross-cultural creative moment, boogaloo emerged to fill the void.



Boogaloo can be identified by its Spanish spelling, bugalú, and also goes by the names shing-a-ling, Latin R&B, and more specifically, Latin boogaloo. The first known use of the word boogaloo in this context was in 1966. The term may have first been used by the singer Richie Ray. “On his 1966 album Se Soltó, Ray prominently announced the debut of the ‘bugaloo,’ a Latin rhythm that he described as a ‘phunky cha cha.’” 4  However, it is also rumored to have been coined by Richie Ray and Bobby Cruz. They were a musical duo who originally performed salsa music but turned to boogaloo. In 1967 they released their album Jala Jala y Boogaloo. The name boogaloo could have also emerged during preparation for this album debut. The name shing-a-ling does not have as clear an origin. However, the names shing-a-ling and boogaloo do appear together in multiple boogaloo songs such as “I’ll be a Happy Man” by The Latin Blues Band  and “Nobody but Me” by The Human Beinz. 5  It seems likely that shing-a-ling emerged because it was used by an artist in the context of boogaloo. The other names for boogaloo have simpler derivations. The name Latin R&B comes from the use of Latin sound in application to African-American rhythm and blues, while Latin boogaloo is the more specific extension of the name boogaloo.

As boogaloo became a distinct musical genre with an identifiable name, boogaloo artists recorded with small record labels and major Latin music labels like Fania Records. Some performers, such as the Joe Cuba Sextet, began to specialize in advancing boogaloo music. Joe Cuba, a musician and songwriter, became known as the Father of Latin boogaloo because of his many contributions to the art style. 6  He grew up in New York, at the heart of the boogaloo movement, and he experienced the growing cultural exchange first hand. This exposure inspired Cuba and encouraged his band, the Joe Cuba Sextet, to create the song "Bang Bang" in 1966. In particular, Ricardo (Richie) Ray's work shaped the Sextet's direction and piano pieces. 7  While "Bang Bang" was not the first boogaloo song, people often regarded it as the first song to advance boogaloo as a genre. The Joe Cuba Sextet recorded "Bang Bang" with Tico Records on an LP vinyl album Wanted Dead or Alive. 8  In 1966, "Bang Bang" appeared as a seven-inch single. 9   "Bang Bang" stayed on the Billboard's Top Hit Songs list for Hot R&B/ Hip Hop Songs for ten weeks. 10

Lyrically, "Bang Bang" epitomizes the cross-cultural fusion behind boogaloo. For example, Joe Cuba was also among the first to produce music with bilingual lyrics while incorporating multiple sounds. Most boogaloo songs include some sort of shouting and ad-libbed conversation. In "Bang Bang," the band shouts out traditional food items from different groups of the East Harlem community like cornbread, chitlins, and Lechón. 11 This reflects the diverse audiences who listened to boogaloo. Members of the Joe Cuba Sextet talked about how they developed "Bang Bang" at a Black dance at the Palm Gardens Ballroom.12  In 1968, Pete Rodriguez, another boogaloo musician and singer, ran an advertisement for a boogaloo show in the New York Amsterdam News, a historically Black newspaper in New York City.13  Joe Cuba and Pete Rodriguez's stories illustrate the diverse audiences following boogaloo bands. 

Although twenty-first-century ears might not detect explicit references to the Civil Rights movement or the Vietnam War, boogaloo artists used music as an outlet for expressing their emotions about political events. Reflecting on her youth in East Harlem during the 1960s, journalist and musician Aurora Flores said, "We weren't living in a vacuum." 14  In fact, "El Pito (I'll Never Go Back to Georgia)," by Joe Cuba and the Sextet references Dizzy Gillepsie's "Manteca" which includes the lines "I'll never go back to Georgia," referencing the state's segregationist policies. 15  Coming from a place of cultural connections, boogaloo musicians consciously contributed to conversations that involved people beyond the boundaries of East Harlem.

Musically, the simplicity and flexibility of boogaloo facilitated its spread beyond East Harlem. Stylistically, boogaloo used hook-heavy English lyrics and encouraged interaction with listeners through the use of call-and-response.  16  "Bang Bang" demonstrates this when the listener can hear band members, women, and children shout "Bang Bang." 17  Whereas many institutions and structures excluded kids, boogaloo made an explicit effort to include everyone. As Joe Cuba explains, a boogaloo is " a sort of song that makes you want to participate." 18 Before long, participants included people far from the neighborhoods where boogaloo began.


Boogaloo’s success in the United States faded fast. In the early 1970s, Fania Records shut out boogaloo to promote salsa in hopes of advancing their label. Fania bought out smaller Latin Music labels such as Tico Records, which Joe Cuba originally recorded with. 19  Some artists talk about how radio DJs stopped playing it, and boogaloo bands became blacklisted. 20  In addition, Fania’s All-Stars did not include boogaloo artists like Joe Cuba.21

Regardless of the radio airtime he received, Joe Cuba remained a fixture in the music scene of East Harlem until his death in 2009. His career continued with innovative albums like Bustin' Out which combined elements of funk with cha-cha-chá and was released in 1972. 22 Nonetheless, people best remember Joe Cuba for boogaloo. At his funeral in East Harlem, mourners and musicians sang "Bang Bang" to honor the man and the music that spread throughout the world. 23

Although "Bang Bang" singles may have appeared in Peru as early as 1966, boogaloo began to take off around the world in the 1970s as the genre declined in the United States. 24  Beginning with countries closer to the United States like Mexico and the Dominican Republic, boogaloo quickly spread throughout Central and South America to become part of the musical lexicon of Latin America.

In some places, people initially associated boogaloo with the United States. For example, in September of 1966, a Brazilian newspaper called Diário de Notícas mentioned two Americans who visited Rio de Janeiro "to show Brazilians the Boogaloo." 25 Originally, boogaloo took the sounds of earlier Latin genres and pushed them further, combining them with jazz, swing, and other American sounds. However, in some areas of Latin America, such as Colombia, people recognized the Afro-Caribbean roots of boogaloo and built upon them to better fit the local music style that was popular. 

In Santiago de Cali, boogaloo found a second home. Cali is the largest city in southwestern Colombia and the third largest city in Colombia overall, providing a home to over 2.3 million Caleños.26  Beginning in the 1930s and 1940s, Cali became a much more industrialized city, attracting major investment from foreign companies like Colgate-Palmolive and Goodyear. This rapid industrialization led to an immigration boom for the city that began in the 1950s and carried on into the 1970s, a time when boogaloo was beginning to fade in the United States. 27  This influx of multicultural immigrants turned Cali into the cultural hub it is today, as the city is known as Colombia's sports capital and the “Capital de la Salsa.” 28  Cali's citizens have shown a love for Afro-Caribbean music and dance, and one of the earliest forms to take off in Cali was boogaloo.


After artists like Joe Bataan toured across Colombia, Latin boogaloo bands began to form. These bands created their own faster version of boogaloo.29  Over time, Caleños have fine-tuned boogaloo to their liking, speeding it up from 38 revolutions per minute to 45. The genre is still popular today, receiving radio airplay as well as having a presence in dance clubs. 30  Every year Cali holds a massive, week-long celebration of Afro-Caribbean music in July, and the Feria de Cali in December is maybe an even more effusive display of the love caleños have for music. In Cali, music has been mixed with Las Vegas-esque showmanship to create dance spectacles featuring intensely difficult choreography as well as circus acts. 31 These shows are not limited to the major festivals; they run throughout the year, with performers donning their face paint for sold-out crowds each week of the year.


While boogaloo has mainly stayed in the Western Hemisphere, it saw a brief revival in the United Kingdom in the early 2000s. Boogaloo artists like Pucho and the Latin Soul Brothers toured through the U.K. and Ireland for crowds as large as 2,000 people in places like Brighton, Dublin, and Galway. 32  To bring the genre full circle, boogaloo has seen a small revival in New York City, albeit as a niche, retro genre. At the end of the day, the genre still appeals to a wide enough audience for clubs to mix in some boogaloo for the people on the dance floor. 33


There are also still a number of boogaloo bands that are releasing music today, both in the U.S. and abroad. Bands like Spanglish Fly and the Boogaloo Assassins tour across the Americas, and even some of the early boogaloo artists come out of retirement to put on performances. Although the genre has lost mainstream popularity, ardent fans show up for events like Johnny Colon and Joe Bataan's sets at the SummerStage festival in Central Park in 2011 and the Boogaloo festival held at Lincoln Center in 2015.34  In discussions of boogaloo’s past on programs like NPR’s Latin Roots, “Bang Bang” often appears on accompanying playlists.35  Through outlets like this, people continue to rediscover Joe Cuba. 

Boogaloo, through the influence it had on musicians and its cross-cultural roots, has found a quiet longevity in the hearts and minds of people across the Americas. Boogaloo's legacy lives on in the ways that it influenced other musicians and other genres of music. For example, “Bang Bang”  influenced Donna Summer’s “Bad Girls” and R Kelly’s “Ignition” by providing them with the hook “Toot Toot! Ah! Beep beep!” 36 Later Nuyorican musical genres, particularly salsa, carried on the evolution of son montuno from its Caribbean origins into the diverse New York music scene today. Boogaloo's fingerprints can also be found in more modern Latin genres. Some bachata, reggaeton, and Latin Trap draw influence from boogaloo. All of these genres are derived from the same roots, the same rhythms brought to the islands during the colonial era, and each new development is influenced by the forms that came before it. 

 
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1 Bryant, "Branches of the Same Tree."
2 "Spanish Harlem."
3 America Reframed. "I Like it Like That."
4 Wang, "Boogaloo Nights."
5 "Human Beinz: Nobody but Me."
6  Rohter, "Joe Cuba Dies at 78."
7  Flores, From Bomba to Hip-Hop, 83.
8  Armstrong, "Bang Bang Push Push."
9  Discogs, "The Joe Cuba Sextet."
10  Flores, From Bomba to Hip-Hop, 79.
11  Joe Cuba, "Bang Bang."
12  Flores, From Bomba to Hip-Hop, 83.
13  Wang, "Brown, Black, and Boogaloo."
14  Joe Cuba, "Bang Bang." 
15  Flores, From Bomba to Hip-Hop, 87.
16  Wang, "Brown, Black, and Boogaloo."
17 Joe Cuba, "Bang Bang."
18 Lipsky, "The Boogaloo Never Died."
19  Waring, "Fania Records."
20  America Reframed, "We Like it Like That."
21  Flores, From Bomba to Hip-Hop, 109.
22  Wang, "Joe Cuba: From Boogaloo to Salsa."
23 Gonzalez, "Mourning Joe Cuba."
24  Discogs, "The Joe Cuba Sextet."
25  "Elas Vieram Mostrar O Boog-A-Loo."
26 Encyclopaedia Britannica, s.v. "Cali, Colombia."
27  Ibid.
28  de Klerk, "Looking for Culture in Cali."
29 Lipsky, "The Boogaloo Never Died." 
30 Sánchez-Coll and Seda, "Boogaloo y Sing-A-Ling: Un Repaso Histórico en sus 4 años."
31 de Klerk, "Looking for Culture in Cali."
32 Carroll, "Going Loco for Latin Boogaloo."
33 Lipsky, "The Boogaloo Never Died." 
34  Ibid. 
35  Latin Roots, "The Lasting Fad of Boogaloo."
36  Dacks, "Joe Cuba Sextet: Bang Bang." 

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