Contratiempo Rueda: Enchufla Is A Combination

Knowing in advance that this Solares was a double session, I chose to plan this as a substantial two plus hour masterclass; something I could afford to do based on the premise that all the attendees would have had significant prior experience.

Objectives
There were two learning objectives, broad enough enough to be considered contexts:

1. the continued performance of dance using contratiempo phrasing to the bongó's martillo - this would serve to ingrain the phrasing to the same naturalised extent as atiempo; and,
2. to investigate, in both 'big picture' and fine detail, the structure of one of rueda de casino's most basic pieces of vocabulary: the 'enchulfa' - as a basis for identifying and executing essential dance skills.

Rationale: Learning Group configuration
The learning group was set up into:

1. a membership of three: two leaders, one follower, and one virtual follower; and consequently,
2. into a rueda de casino square of two pairs; and,
3. partnerships without hold.

For leaders, the alternation between real and virtual followers would test, clarify and validate their spatial positioning. The square configuration of two pairs would create the most demanding angles in the performance of rueda de casino. If they could cope with this, every other configuration would be easy. The requirement for good visualisation would be laid bare through negating the use of the arms.

Concept: Revealing "enchufla" as a combination
The group was shown how the "enchulfa" move comprises three sequential change-of-place components of enchulfa, dame, and dile que no where:

1. enchufla is a simple change of place clockwise, incorporating a follower's left turn;
2. dame is a simple change of place clockwise, ending with a 90 degree change of orientation - followers to the right, leaders to the left - to acquire new partner;
3. dile que no is a simple change of place anti-clockwise.

As a result of component 2 (dame), there is a net group rotation of 90 degrees clockwise.

Warm Up
Partnered, without hold, to music. Calls used were "dame" and "enchufla-dame-dile que no". Calling was federated. The group was given time to get their bearings with the new orientation angles. It took two songs.

Exercise One: Pockets of Synchronisation
Dancers were asked to focus on their 'pockets of synchronisation' - phases in their dance where they were most available for synchronisation - corresponding to their martillo vocalisation of "toc-y-tik-y". The application of this point was most easily observed in the leaders when with their virtual follower. When asked at the end of this exercise, all dancers responded that they positively felt more 'in tune' with each other.

Exercise Two: Dame Pocket of Synchronisation 
I drew participants' attention to their movement ensuing from the 'dame' call, indicating that it lacked completion. Both followers and leaders, especially the latter, needed to end their movement not just oriented to their new partner, but finishing in a manner which made them available to be synchronised with. I called this the acquisition phase.

This stimulated a useful discussion about the moment preceding acquisition, when there was a tapered ending with the current partner before a smooth beginning with the new partner. I likened it to the use of a clutch in a car when changing gears.

Concept: Change-of-Place
Participants had exposed to the idea of change-of-place previously in our merengue sessions. The major difference between that then, compared to the change-of-place from the Caribbean Sway, is that the latter requires the places to be traded in two steps, not three. The first step of the Caribbean Sway is behind into close third position, which only leaves the second and third steps for movement.

The first step into reverse close third position 'loads up' the body and prepares it for movement through stacked torque curves in an upward cascade through the joints. This provides the drive of the second step taken, not directly into, but slightly diagonal of the partner.

Followers are led to trace a route of an asymmetrical "V": longer and shallower angled on the second step; shorter and more steeply angled on the third step. Leaders move themselves through the counterpart route around the partnership's axis of symmetry. Both routes together result in an oblique parallelogram, or offset diamond. The symmetry of the routes is indicative of the equal effort contributed by both partners to the movement.

This still holds true if either partner is executing a turn.

Exercise Three: Change-of-Place
The change-of-place movement was practised in partnership, first without music, then to martillo, then to music. The learning points provided were:

• "aim for your partner's shoulder" (on the passing side); and,
• "skimming around/almost brushing the turning partner's back with your chest".

Exercise Four: Caribbean Sway with Major Turn
I introduced a variant of the Caribbean Sway incorporating a major turn - turn in the same direction as the stepping leg (i.e. if stepping onto the right leg, then a rightward turn, or a leftward turn if stepping onto the left leg) - commencing on the second step. The rotation continues through the third step during the 'tok-y-tik', completing on the final '-y'. The turn is distributed across two bearings, created by the balls of both feet on the floor, and thus changes from a major turn in step two, to a minor turn in step three.

This is a common movement in rueda de casino, performed for example by the follower during enchufla.

Briefing: The Transnational Martillo
I was keen, with this being an extended session, to maintain participants' touch with music. And so, I took the opportunity to put my ethnomusicologist hat on, and provide some background to the existence, history, evolution and importance of the martillo rhythm in Caribbean music. I used 90 as the magic number, and began with two occurrences:

• 1990 as the date of release of "Bachata Rosa" by Juan Luis Guerra, the album which brought bachata to international prominence; and,
• 1890 as the beginning of Cuba's struggle for independence, which resulted in Sindo Garay's flight from Cuba to Dominica.

The discussion touched on the turbulent history of Haiti and Dominican Republic, the whitening of the latter, and how it impacted the interpretation and performance of its music and dance. The emphasis was on the shared origins of itinerant Cuban son and Dominican música de guitarra.

The Main Practice Session
All these elements were incorporated into rueda de casino practice, in square format, using only the elements of enchufla, dame, and dile que no, to federated calls. Music alternated between slow-tempo son and bachata, to up-tempo son montuno and salsa. Slower music emphasised control and primed movement, quicker music brought excitement and forced assimilation.

By the session's end, all participants had reached learning saturation and were physically tired, but enough practice had been done for the major points to be assimilated - ready for another double-session next week.

Loo Yen Yeo

15th June 2013 Prince Royce @The Coronet Theatre, Elephant & Castle, London

"Royce? In London?!?" was my first thought.

The freshly-minted event cropped up innocuously on Facebook and I couldn't believe my eyes. My mouse pointer made like Usain Bolt, sprinting to the link before it dropped off my news feed. If this were true, it would be the first time, at least in my memory, that an international bachata artist had played on these shores. Questions careened about crazily in my mind - What would the audience demographic be? How might the live performance bachata differ to recorded material? Would the consumption of bachata differ to salsa? If so, why? Could I hack a whole evening of the Dominican sweetmeat (ahem)? Would experiencing the artist's live performance practice inform my understanding of his music? Would it help in the deployment of bachata in my DJ sets?

A ticket was the portal to answers.

On a blustery, changeable summer's morning, I was transported bleary-eyed after two nights of hard DJing via a fleet steel carriage to the great capital in the company of four fellow Roycers of unique intensity. A smacking Malaysian lunch; a trot up the Mall to Buckingham Palace into the teeth of a deluge which would have had Noah reaching for his nails and saw; an exhausted refuge in a pub cellar, failed to dampen spirits. We joined the tail of people at the Coronet Theatre at the appointed hour.

And we waited. And we waited. In the coldly stiffening evening breeze.

Preliminaries
The minute-hand traced more than a full lap around the clock-face; its progress increasingly confirmed that the promoters, Ritmolatinobaby, had bitten off more than they could've organisationally chewed - there was no extra capacity for management to dispel uncertainty and misinformation. I crossed my fingers and gazed at the dishevelled blue cube of a building that was the Coronet Theatre, lodged as it was against the shoulder of London's unofficial hub of Latin American life - Elephant and Castle's shopping centre.

Venue
When we were finally loosed within, I was frisked after the metal detectors (a stark reminder of club life in the big city) and ushered past the box office where my name was crossed off a list. Inside the Coronet was much more promising. Its previous life as a place where actors trod the boards is still evident: the entry ramps brought us in at Circle level with a bar and facilities at the rear, Front-of House (FoH), DJ and lighting booths to the front. Steps on either side of the booths led down to the former Stalls area, now a well-proportioned dance space with obligatory security pit in front of the stage. Above was the Balcony area where the seating had been retained.

The sound quality was the first thing which struck me - it was good. Probably was a result of its former purpose, the acoustic coverage was even across both levels and without boom. A lack of sibilance from the flyers indicated the quality of the set-up, good enough for me to distinguish easily when lossless or data-compressed music was being played. The settings on the digital mixing desk reassured me that the band had been sound-checked, possibly the cause of our delayed entry.

Pre-show
Once the doors opened, the influx of people was steady and controlled. Taking a tour around both floors I estimated an attendance of five hundred souls; average age in the early twenties; more than a third Latin; 60% women; and socio-demographically class A, B and C1 due to the comparatively high ticket price. Looking at their movements, more than 90% of them were there to see the concert; there being just a handful of couples doing their fancy twirly salsa and bachata thing.

Which segues nicely to the Disc Jockeys.

There was a whole battery of 'em - all teen-aged, male, and facing directions contrary to that of their caps. "Since when did DJing become a gang activity?" I mused. What started off as poppy post-internationalisation bachata moved on to reggaeton then k-pop/latin-pop. At first instinct I felt it strange, but then looking at the demographic of young, probably first-generation British-born Latinas, it was well-judged. What was not well-judged was the quality of their music samples. Perhaps they'll learn their craft in time. An MC came on extolling the greatness of Dominican bachata, exhorting us all to worship at the altar of dance (or something like that), steering away from mention of hot-dogs or any Bronx-based artefacts from Royce's birthland. Then the MC in concert with the DJs colluded to drum up a couple of false starts, just to wind up the crowd.

I was feeling bear-baited.

Royce the Entertainer
At last the lights dimmed for real, an hour later than billed. The band musicians assumed their posts at their instruments: rhythm guitar, bass guitar, trap-set, conga-bongo-tambora, keyboards, güira-shaker, midi, and backing vocals. Then BAM! Geoffrey Royce Rojas aka. Prince Royce exploded onto stage in a blaze of reddened yellow light.

Clad in jeans and a leather jacket over a white tee, the young man opened exuding charisma and confidence. His manner of stage presentation and engagement was very much in the United States' school, of which Christina Aguilera is a prime example: slick, sure-footed, and well managed. Always mindful of the camera, his stage coverage was heavily biased to stage left where the feed to his video wall backdrop was shot from. He filled the room with most of his 'Phase II' numbers including "incondicional", plus stalwarts from his eponymous debut release like "corazón sin cara".

Prince Royce's songs all have a mid-tenor's tessitura and a vocal range hardly exceeding two octaves: singing which is all about accessibility, about feeling comfortable, not about virtuosity. His musical intonation was good, apart from a rough patch just past halfway through, when the band's in-ear monitoring systems failed. True to his professionalism, Royce gave little indication of this to his audience. I was actually pleased to hear that, because it indicated his confidence to perform without auto-tune's safety net, although I should add that more scale-work would give him better pitch stability.

Unsurprisingly there were no deep moments of personal revelation - he's not far enough along the road for the stage truly to be his home. Instead he went down the well-trodden routes of searching for someone in the audience and singing to her when he found her two songs later; and holding a mini-dance competition with the (unexpected) winner selected via the audience voting-by-applause. These activities were strategically timed to give his singing voice respite in a concert which lasted a good eighty minutes.

Bachata practice
Unlike in salsa, it isn't overtly clear that internationalised bachata's structure is capable of accommodating musical and lyrical improvisation, even though its ancestral genres were. Therefore in comparison to salsa, Prince Royce's performance practices resulted in music which:

• was closer to studio recorded forms;
• lacked the flexibility for new interpretations of musical and lyrical themes; and
• was compact, requiring more numbers to be played in the concert.

The primary mode of consumption was overwhelmingly passive - there was little participation in the interpretation-reinforcement of ritmo on the part of the audience nor was it encouraged from stage. In total, the experience highlighted an unseen division in this country; where the more avid consumers of bachata's music is by non-aficionado dancers, and the more avid practitioners of bachata's dance is by those somewhat indifferent to its music. This is far away from the Latin American cultural concept of 'ritmo' where dance and music are an inseparable whole.

And that Prince Royce's performance practice inherently lacked ritmo integration speaks volumes of his own cultural divestment, despite literature alluding to his Dominican authenticity.

Conclusion
I got my answers, although I must add the caveat that these general observations are not statistically accurate. I have a better feel for why Geoffrey Royce Rojas wrote his songs and what they mean to him personally - it has very much informed me as to how to deploy his music better in my DJ sets.

My friends and I found it strange that although his concert was billed as part of a "world tour promoting his 'Phase II' album", there was no merchandise on sale at the venue. It transpires that Prince Royce is now signed to Sony, leaving the label of his first two albums - Top Choice - on less that amicable terms, if reports are to be believed. It remains to be seen whether this will prove to be a wise move. Sergio George, owner of Top Choice, has an incomparable Midas touch in crafting hits. Sony, in my opinion, has had its fair share of slaying golden geese.

The experience of the concert was memorable and worthwhile; I would be happy to get the Royce treatment again. There are plenty more questions in search of answers.

Loo Yeo

A Depth of Latin Culture: Bolero and Bachata (Part 2)

Whilst I personally agree that Tito Rodríguez, Daniel Santos, and Vincentico Valdés sing heart-moving boleros, if one is unable to discern the lyrical content, then are bachata and bolero equals?

I feel it's necessary to ask this since they:

• share a common ancestry, being descended from what is sometimes referred to as trova (troubadour) music in Cuba, and música de guitarra (guitar-based music) in Spanish Dominica*;
• owe much to the work of one man - Sindo Garay;
• rely on the martillo (hammer) rhythm of the bongó, not the conga, as their main propulsive element; and
  
• are slow to mid-tempo, of broad sweeping phrases with a late attack.
  

The main difference, over that bolero was danced contratiempo (on2, accent4) whereas bachata is not (on1, accent4), and that the latter is slightly more up-tempo with a faster attack; is that bachata is what's happening now.

Each dance is of its time - that is the social, political, economic conditions must be right for it to thrive. For example, salsa would not likely have occurred in the courts of King Louis XIV despite the Sun King's penchant, nay, necessity for dance:

1. Individual partner dances did not arise until later in the colonies, when plantation owners did so to express their independence from the crown. Until then, people kept step with one another in court.
2. Military defeats in Islamic Africa and the fear of slave revolt led to suppression of influences from the 'heathen' Dark continent - including extensive syncopations and polyrhythms in music.
3. Overt hip movements were considered lascivious and publicly indecent.
   

(Gawd! I'd've been thrown in the Bastille.) On the other hand, salsa arrived in Venezuela and Colombia right at a time when there was no indigenous expression for the cosmopolitanism their burgeoning cities were experiencing**. Bachata enjoys the dissemination rights of the Youtube Generation: globally reaching, and yet with its music and dance undivested of each other.

And as for the romantic musical expression, well... would people still dance to its soft soothing tones if bachatas de desparecio (thematically disparaging of women) were played? Maybe not in the Spanish-speaking countries, where women have begun to take some stand against similarly misogynistic expressions in reggaetón. But plenty of others are indifferent, and would dance anyway. They'd dance in Asia, oblivious. The attribute of being romantic would seem to owe its weight to music, with lyrical content as modifier. So how might one physically interpret this as a dancer?

The bolero does not have the same chequered past that the bachata has - its cultural history is clothed with more gentility and thematic consonance musically and lyrically. In places lived in by both, the bolero holds its own; described indicatively by Bosco as 'In America you play when the lights go down and the floor is packed with young and old alike.'

At least for now.

But are the people on that floor executing a series of movements to a rhythm; in a manner discrete enough to qualify as the ritmo of an actual genre? Or are they just shuffling about as they do in 'smoochie' sessions here? Could the latter form be the definition a social bolero - simply swaying to bolero music as opposed to dancing contratiempo? I suspect that the answer lies towards the easier end of in-between.

I got a hurry-up from him:

[begins]

José María Bustos:
Hey, my man!? Check out my pics of the MWSC and when you have a minute try to reply to my question about why Asians don't dance boleros and do they in Europe? In NYC its the most romantic thing about Salsa!! Y gue Dio's te tenga en La Rumba! B.

[ends]

Bro, I hope you've gotten your answer.

I myself can't say how long the grace of bolero will last in a space that bachata means to fill. With no premier bolero dancers of international repute to show us how, it can't be far away. But isn't it interesting to see how a cultural insider considers the bolero to be a part of salsa?

(On to Part Three.)

Loo Yen

*yes, a 'History of Bachata' is being planned for the salsa website.
** yes, there will be mention of this when I update the 'History of Salsa'

A Depth of Latin Culture: Bolero and Bachata (Part 1)

Bosco gets around a bit, not only in his day-guise as mild-mannered leading exponent of visual merchandising, but also by night as delinquent DJ extraordinaire. I find his take on the transnational Latin scene in the Far East, as a Nuyorican who'd 'been there' at salsa's genesis, illuminating. Oftentimes, it's the questions he asks that inform me the most. Here's an edit of a recent one:

[begins]

José María Bustos:
Why do Asians not dance boleros? They enjoy dancing bachata and no doubt enjoy the close physical contact and the romantic nature of the songs, although many cannot understand the words. Yet nothing is more romantic to Latinos as the bolero and when you hear someone like Vincentico Valdés sing 'La Montaña' or Tito Rodríguez sing 'Un Cigarillo, La Lluvia Y Tu' there is nothing quite as romantic... when dancing bolero... Latin schools in Asia don't teach boleros either? Is it danced in Europe? In America you play when the lights go down and the floor is packed with young and old alike.

[ends]

'Wow,' my mind boggled. Pana had managed to cram a whole horde of ideas into one innocent-looking paragraph. I looked around suspiciously... 'was he doing this on purpose?'

Well, Asians don't and yet they do dance boleros.

Bolero is a much older genre than bachata and salsa, and unlike in Latin America where the same word 'ritmo' refers to both the music or the dance, the coupling between them is not so tight in other cultures. When the bolero had already attained its cultural zenith, radio (and not yet television) had only just started to become commercially relevant as conduit of the mass media. Bolero music that did reach Europe and the Far East was largely consumed in the same social space as that of easy-listening crooners (note the word 'listening') - take, for example, the career dimensions of Machín when he chose to settle in Spain.

Radio allowed the sounds of bolero to stretch out and impact significantly, parts of the world where visuals of its dance could not. Compare that to the effects of talking pictures and television on the chachachá later. The dancing of the bolero, requiring the visual form of communication, was restricted to the physical human migratory patterns out of Cuba by the predominant mode of transport - shipping. Hence the strength in reach of bolero's dance was limited to around the Caribbean basin and the port of New York.

But bolero the dance DID reach Asia, albeit in a different guise.

The ballroom rhumba, developed to conform to European mores, is danced to bolero music. International ballroom's codification of the chachachá and its rhumba serve as historical snapshots of the European, mainly British, interpretations of these genres; just as its own tango relates or not to tango argentino. This very British institution spread its influence throughout the colonies and eventually the Commonwealth; my mother remembers dancing the ballroom rhumba and its chachachá socially (i.e. on1) as a young girl in the 1950s under a grand estate-house in Butterworth. And let's not forget that Bruce Lee, aged eighteen, was Crown Colony chachachá champion of Hong Kong in 1958.

A 17-year-old Bruce Lee dancing the chachachá with Leung Bo Ling in the 1957 Hong Kong movie 'Darling Girl'. The next year he won the Crown Colony Cha-Cha Championship.

The dance studios where international rhumba may be learned are legion: across an expanse including Canada, the United States, Great Britain, Italy, Lithuania, Malaysia, Singapore, China, Australia and Japan. But the practice of this dance occurs in a far different social space than the bolero referred to by Bosco.

To my partner in crime, it is the bachata which now appears to occupy the place internationally that bolero once did locally in the Americas...

(On to Part Two.)

Loo Yeo

25th January 2009 Barrio Latino @Platillos, Leopold Square, Sheffield

(aka. A Winston-Flavoured Salsa Lesson)

It was a bit of a mad dash yesterday. I raced back from this nation's capital barely in time to make it for the last of three taster salsa lessons which had been running weekly in Sheffield's newest salsa night 'Barrio Latino' in Platillos. The previous two I had contrived to miss through a conspiracy of circumstance, and I would not to be foiled again (even if it meant getting out and manually locomoting East Mainline's ageing locomotive).

I walked briskly into the newly revamped and swanky Leopold Square, smack-bang in Sheffield's city centre, and a medium-sized stone's throw away from the veteran Bar Cubana - past the eateries and purveyors of libations which were standing forlornly empty. It was Sunday night and the Square, packed to the gunnels on Fridays and Saturdays, felt as if tired from its exertions.

Platillos is a well-appointed establishment: a bar downstairs and a tapas restaurant upstairs. Entering the lower floor, I encountered a rectangular room with stairs upwards on one side, a bar on the opposite side, DJ booth at the far end, and seating along most of the periphery. The unsprung wooden floor which would have been a tight squeeze for thirty-plus dancing couples, was interjected with two structural columns. The decor is warm and plush; a perfect small venue for a salsa night.

Rob's grin was there to greet me and coax my details onto his organiser's mailing list. We made our first-time acquaintances (he'd heard of me via Facebook apparently) with amiable chatter as I fished out my taster dues - the lesson had been billed as "New York-style" salsa; a mode I'd not revisited in the better part of a decade. What-is-more, the charismatic Winston Mitchell, friend and pillar of the salsa community was doing the teaching. I'd never had a Winston-flavoured salsa lesson before, so I was very much looking forward to this.

Spying him in the far corner, I snuck up to say "hello" and to extort him into accepting a beer using the good ole, "we gotta keep the bar happy to keep the venue ticking over" thrust. He countered with the reliably effective, "you're good, you shouldn't be doing this class"; which I deflected with the philosophical "one's basics can't be too strong" manoeuvre. The riposte he was gathering was beginning to look mighty when, as luck would have it, the exchange was blunted by the appearance of a Winston-fan. I hid behind the decoy and made good my escape.

Winston's lesson was co-taught by Sophie, and structurally contained a bit of everything as all tasters should: basic steps, a short combination with turns evenly distributed across both gender roles, a simple shine, technical pointers, and a bit of styling. It was ably presented with the setting of achieveable goals, and the class was split on the odd occasion as Sophie went through the women's part whilst Winston the men's. The learning atmosphere reminded me very much of Ces and Kerry's (of LatinXces) manner where a patient, easy approach is the hallmark.

If I had been tasked with designing a single-hour taster of NY salsa, it would have borne a similar form.

I had heard from some salseros that they thought Winston's pacing was a little slow. I now I understand why. The perception is based on a comparison with some other instructors who cram their hour with one combination, packed wall-to-wall with turn elements. Like proverbial sardines in a can. Winston on the other hand, resisted the temptation and opted for a short, balanced combination; and used the available time to explain fundamental technical details AND allow sufficient practice of the component parts. It was clear he was after quality.

Next week he and Sophie begin a six-week course. I'm sure that they've already begun addressing their vocal projection (the room is not acoustically kind to an instructor's voice), and will continue to accumulate their range of teaching metaphors. And as experience lends them more polish, I have no doubt that calls for them will increase in volume. NY salsa has stylistically changed since I last was a beginner, and would myself have signed up for its duration had it not been for commitments to Conjunto Laloma. I cannot give a more honest recommendation.

The normally interminable wait between the end of a lesson and the full pace of social salsa didn't happen. Whilst I blinked, Platillos filled up; and suddenly there was pedal-to-the-metal dancing. Ana, Rob's partner-in-crime, was on the decks playing modern dancefloor favourites. As a DJ she set up a strong party atmosphere like in Manchester's long-running Copacabana, mixing it up salsa with merengue, bachata, reggaeton and kizomba. Everyone: the Kenyans, Brits, Angolans, Spanish, Asians, Latins, ate it up - I waited for zouk to come on as the kitchen sink.

...denied...

It was all hot, sweaty fun. But sadly I can't feature a full review, as I had to make an early exit.

'Barrio Latino' is still very much in its birthing phase: enjoying the euphoria of being young, new, and the rapidly escalating success that that conveys. It has all the right ingredients for success: welcoming hosts, a dynamic energy, strong instructors, a crowd-aware DJ, a tremendous amount of goodwill and a clientèle who appreciate that the bar needs to be fed well for the night to prosper.

Whether it can sustain itself to become an established favourite? It's too early to tell. In Winston and Sophie are instructors more than capable of introducing newcomers to salsa and growing the base. The hardest part will be in keeping the product vital; by avoiding the attentions of Complacency in the format - especially in music policy. To the protagonists of 'Barrio Latino' I say,

"It's there for the taking."

Loo

"Bachata: A Social History of Dominican Popular Music" by Deborah Pacini Hernandez

What Deborah Pacini Hernandez does extremely well is to tell the human story of Bachata. Not once, in the easy-flowing course of narrative, does she ever lose sight of the principle that the music and dance of bachata were made by and for the consumption of people; endeavouring, as best they could, to negotiate the unhappy circumstances of their existence during the Dominican Republic's economic crises.

This is not a dry tome minimally reworked from the academic thesis of a musicologist. It is laden with the juices of humanity: bitter, sweet, sour, piquant and oftentimes salty. From bachata's rural origins as simple guitar music, its migration to the shanties, its supression, its marginalisation, and its eventual unshackling, Hernandez tells one of the greatest stories never given proper voice in modern music.

For one seeking to understand what bachata is, you will not do better than this book. Be prepared though, you will get an object lesson in what it means to be human - disinterested depravation and the determination to be heard wrestle with each other across all the pages. It is a lens through which musics raised in the same foster home: rap, reggae, salsa, might be better understood.

The book stops short, just at the threshold of Bachata's revelation on the international stage. It is a shame but then it is neat, in that those who would part the curtain behind 'Aventura' to see bachata as it was before, can do it with just one well-written book. And in so doing, will come to be reminded that bad humans do bad things; and at the same time will still take heart... for good people do act to overcome injustice.

Loo Yen Yeo