Out of Cuba: Latin American Music Takes Africa by Storm

This record provides a snapshot of what Africans heard in clubs and on radio when HMV GV series records started arriving on the continent in the 1930s. These are the very songs that influenced musicians all over West Africa and the Congos, and that spawned the birth of rumba and countless other Afro-Cuban styles. The superbly selected compilation opens with the seminal “El Manisero” and includes several other definitive Cuban tracks, but contrary to the album’s title also includes Luiz Gonzaga’s “Juazeiro” from northeastern Brazil and the Puerto Rican “Menéalo que se Empelota — Stir It Up or She’ll Get Annoyed.”