✊🏾🇵🇷When Dancing is a Form of Protest
If you’ve ever been to Puerto Rico, you will notice that it is deeply rooted in its culture through music. Puerto Rican music is all about celebrating life, resilience, and identity.
Before Salsa and Reggaeton and way before TikTok dance challenges
Bomba is Puerto Rico’s oldest musical tradition brought to the island by enslaved West Africans in the 17th century as a means for resistance, resilience, and self-expression. It extended throughout sugar plantations along the coastal towns of Loíza, Mayagüez, Ponce, and San Juan. It remains one of the most popular forms of folk music on the island and serves as significant evidence of its rich African heritage.
Bomba drums allowed enslaved Africans to release feelings of sadness, anger, and resistance through dance gatherings and was also used to celebrate baptisms and marriages, communicate with each other, and plan rebellions. The roots of this tradition can be traced to the Ashanti people of Ghana.
The word bomba is rooted in the Akan language and the Bantu of Africa. The roots of this tradition can be traced to the Ashanti people of Ghana. In most Bantu languages, bomba has a common meaning that describes "the spiritual atmosphere of a gathering.
A Form of Storytelling
Because enslaved Africans came from different regions and spoke different languages, they came together and built community through music and dance. Bomba became the common language amongst slaves but when plantation owners realized this they killed people for practicing it. Others were beaten and mistreated, yet they persisted. As Bomba evolved, it also became a coping mechanism and an expression of culture and resistance.
Bomba is a dialogue between the dancer in the center and the drummer. It’s all about energy and connection.
Unlike other music genres, the bomba dancer sets the rhythm for the drummer rather than the other way around — the drummer follows the dancer.
Without dance, there is no bomba. Bomba is the name of the drum, the dance, and the genre of rhythms. Every rhythm has a purpose. You need to listen to the lyrics closely and pay attention, so you can express the song's message through your music and facial expressions.
For most of its history, Bomba was male-dominated along with being marginalized because of its African roots, but today a strong female presence is common. From singers to drummers and dancers, performers and participants take space to reclaim their African heritage and express their frustrations about social issues such as inequality, gender gaps, violence against women, government corruption, and the colonial status of Puerto Rico.
As some Puerto Ricans continue to leave the island — not by choice but out of need — and as the Nuyoricans desire a connection to the island — their culture and music becomes their lifeline wherever they go.
Puerto Rico, la isla del encanto, where nature is full of music and even the coquí sings. 🐸🌴🎶
