Mambo

Cuban musicians Israel "Cachao" Lopez and his brother Orestes experimented with danzon and added a new rhythm and called the result “mambo.” This happened in the late 1930s, and it revolutionized Latin music.

There are those who like to credit Pérez Prado for inventing the mambo, but he did not. Prado popularize it because he was at the right place at the right time - in Mexico in 1948. A musicians' strike in the U.S. prevented recordings in the United States of America. Prado, who was under contract to RCA Records, which at the time was one of the biggest record labels in the world, recorded a tune titled “Que Rico el mambo.” It swept the country. The mambo craze had begun.

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