“Better watch them from afar. Their customs, dances and songs are of a wild community, distant from everything pertaining to civilization”. Thus were the thoughts of the “La Cornisa” plantation owner, who accompanied by his wife watched the slaves in their free day celebrating with their liturgical songs. But they could not stop the sound of the drums, the rhythm, the cadence, the heat coming from their feet that, restless at the beginning, ended by disobeying reason. Then, their bodies were invaded by unexplainable movements, pouring their energies, until they found a new spirit. It was the spirit of a new feeling, from which roots a stem started to sprout and which young branches would end up hastily shaping the robust tree, the tree of Cuban musical culture, that, which despite having a source of peninsular tunes and renaissance beats, one day also found its dawn in the sounds of the drums.
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