16th century

The "rumba influence" came in this century with the black slaves imported from Africa. The
native Rumba folk dance is essentially a sex pantomime danced extremely fast with
exaggerated hip movements and with a sensually aggressive attitude on the part of the man
and a defensive attitude on the part of the woman. The music is played with a staccato beat in
keeping with the vigorous expressive movements of the dancers. Accompanying instruments
include the maracas, the claves, the marimbola, and the drums.
Late 19th century
Among the black population of the eastern Cuban province of Oriente, the son is a vocal,
instrumental, and dance genre also derived from African and Spanish influences.
Mid-19th century
The Afro-Cuban rumba developed in the black urban slums of Cuba. It encompasses vocal
performance, drumming, and improvisational dancing.
In the 1920s
Cuban composers and performers combined elements of both son and rumba in their music
and dance, and their exciting and exotic rumba de salón became popular in the nightclubs and
cabarets of Europe.
In the early 1930s,
Rumba was introduced in the United States, but the music, which became popular in the 1930s
and 1940s, featured tame Anglophone lyrics combined with “Americanized” orchestrations or,
as it is often termed, “watered-down” Cuban music. The dance that emerged resembled the
Cuban ballroom son with added foxtrot dance moves. It is uncertain when or how the word
“rhumba” acquired an “h,” but it came to represent the “Latin” rhythms and melodies that fill
the American songbook to this day.