Curura Musique

Latin funk is a hybrid style that fuses the hard-driving grooves of American funk and soul with Afro‑Latin and Caribbean rhythms such as boogaloo, salsa, and son cubano. It typically features syncopated bass lines, backbeat‑heavy drums, and a layered Latin percussion section of congas, timbales, bongos, cowbell, and güiro. Horns play a central role, supplying tight stabs, call‑and‑response riffs, and montuno‑like figures alongside guitar guajeos, wah‑wah textures, and clavinet or electric piano vamps. Vocals may be in Spanish, English, or Spanglish, often reflecting urban Latino life and dance‑floor culture. The result is a festive, danceable sound that is both gritty and polished, rooted in barrio street funk yet rich in Latin rhythmic sophistication.

Latin jazz is a fusion of jazz harmony and improvisation with Afro–Latin American rhythms, song forms, and percussion. It combines the swing, bebop, and big-band traditions with clave-based grooves such as son, rumba, danzón, and mambo, and later integrates Brazilian feels like samba and bossa nova. Typical features include the use of the clave (2–3 or 3–2), piano montunos (guajeos), bass tumbao patterns, timbales cáscara, conga marcha, and call-and-response horn "mambo" figures. While the rhythm section locks into cyclical patterns, soloists improvise using the vocabulary of jazz, creating music that is both danceable and harmonically rich.

Latin soul is a hybrid of African‑American soul/R&B and Afro‑Caribbean dance music that emerged among Nuyorican and other Latino communities in the United States during the mid‑1960s. It blends English and Spanish vocals, gospel‑tinged harmonies, and backbeat‑driven grooves with Latin percussion, montuno piano figures, and son‑clave patterns. The result is upbeat, dance‑floor‑ready songs with catchy horn riffs, call‑and‑response choruses, and ear‑worm hooks that sit comfortably between soul radio and a Latin social club.

Psychedelic is an umbrella term for music that seeks to evoke, emulate, or accompany altered states of consciousness through sound, arrangement, and studio technique. It emphasizes timbral color, drones, modal harmony, surreal or mystical lyrics, and immersive production, often using tape manipulation, extended effects, and non‑Western instruments (notably from Indian classical traditions). The result ranges from delicate, dreamlike textures to dense, kaleidoscopic soundscapes intended to expand perception and dissolve conventional song form.

Latin alternative is an umbrella term for genre-bending music made by Latin American and US Latino artists that sits outside mainstream Latin pop. It blends alternative and indie rock attitudes with Latin rhythmic vocabularies (cumbia, salsa, ska, reggae), hip hop, and electronic production. The style privileges experimentation, hybridity, and scene-driven authenticity rather than commercial formulas. Lyrics are often in Spanish (sometimes bilingual or Spanglish), and themes range from the personal and poetic to social and political commentary. The movement coalesced in the mid-to-late 1990s around U.S. media and festivals (e.g., LAMC), helping connect diverse scenes from Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Puerto Rico, and beyond.