Music: Shake Your Body

The "black-bean invasion" arrives: from salsa to hip-hop, Latino sounds go pop

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Just as the term Hispanics embraces everyone from Cuba and Mexico to Tierra del Fuego, so Latino music comprises many different styles. Deep in the Times Square subway station, hard by the rumbling uptown trains and across the way from a hot-dog stand, is the Record Mart, one of Manhattan's leading Hispanic specialty shops. Customers come from all over in search of music from Mexico, Ecuador, Peru and the Caribbean. "What is Latin music? That's like asking 'What is American music?' " says Owner Jesse Moskowitz. "Is it Frank Sinatra, Madonna, bluegrass, Joni Mitchell? Spanish music is exactly the same way."

Despite its sometimes bewildering variety of names and guises, hot Latino pop comes in three basic varieties. First there are the aggressive boy-meets- girl banalities of hip-hop, which dresses up the hard beats of rap music with a glitzy attire of synthesizers, Latin percussion and '70s disco tunes. Then there is the so-called Miami Sound, whose appeal is frankly bicultural. "We blend our roots and music with American rock and jazz, put a little Brazilian samba in and some island sounds, and there you have it," says Oliva, who fronts a band called Los Sobrinos del Juez (the Judge's Nephews). And there is real salsa, old-country music preserved in the persons of Cruz and Puente, known as "El Rey," who have a combined total of more than 80 years in the business.

If hip-hop is Hispanic bubblegum-flavored rap-rock, salsa is a catchall term that became current in the early '70s. Although many national strains have gone into salsa, it is fundamentally based in 18th century Cuba, where African slaves were brought to work the island's sugar plantations and their music was wedded to the dominant Spanish culture. Instrumentation features piano, brass, percussion (like the congas or the timbales), and sometimes even flutes and violins, as well as a lead singer. The rhythm is often complex and layered, but at root there is a steady beat -- played apretado, or "tight" -- and a two-bar structure that makes it pre-eminently danceable. If the mood is right, a salsa song can run on for half an hour. "We Cubans dance at the drop of a hat," notes Estefan. "Our music is a good mix of Latin rhythms and dance music from everywhere."

Big cities with large Hispanic populations such as New York, Miami and Los , Angeles have long boasted night spots that cater to a mostly Latin crowd. What's different is that now mixed crowds are gathering at chic bicoastal watering holes, like Manhattan's newly revivified Copacabana, or Los Angeles' ornate, chandeliered Cache, where the dressed-to-kill crowd is sometimes one- fifth Anglo. "Whenever I play, I see that it's not just a completely Latin crowd anymore," says Pete Escovedo, the Mexican-American jazz percussionist and father of Pop Star Sheila E. "It used to be that if you played Latin music, that's all you drew: Latinos."

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