Tropical music

Tropical music (Spanish: música tropical) is a broad category within Latin music that refers to rhythmic, dance-oriented music genres originating from the Spanish-speaking Caribbean and surrounding regions. This includes the islands of Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and the Caribbean coastal regions of Colombia, Mexico, Central America and Venezuela.

In the 1940s and 1950s, the term tropical music was created to cover all music from the hispanophone Caribbean excluding Cuban music, which had its own category and niche within the American (and to a lesser extent European) music market. However, later in the 20th century after the Cuban Revolution, tropical music gained a broader meaning and began to be used in order to distinguish Caribbean genres such as cumbia and son cubano from inland genres such as tejano and norteño.