Cuban Ritual Music and Dance

The dominant religious music in Cuba is a belief known as lucumi, frequently referred to as a syncretic religion blending African and Catholicism beliefs known as santeria. The drumming rhythms of the batci drum used in lucumi ceremonies corresponds to each of the divinities (arishas) with a special musical language that includes songs and dances. These religious rhythms, songs, and dances were absorbed into the secular Cuban music that would become (according to Ned Sublette), a fundamental music of the New World. Its influence can be found in classical music, ragtime, tango, jazz, rhythm and blues, country, rock and roll, funk, hip hop, and salsa.