The word “Palenque” refers to a settlement created by run-away slaves, and in the slave era there were several of these small settlements in the remote and inaccessible mountains of Yateras. Today the population is a mix of the descendants of the original Taino Indians, African slaves, Spanish settlers, French coffee planters, and immigrants from the neighboring islands of Haiti and Jamaica. This cultural mix gave birth to a music typical of Yateras, “changüi”, which features the Spanish-influenced guitar, African marimbula and bongos, and Indian maracas and guayo. 

Roots of Cuban Music 
The two foundations of Cuban music are from Spanish and African musical heritage. The Spanish derived quiriba is perhaps the oldest root of Cuban music. Once thought to be extinct, this musical form was rediscovered in 1982 at a pig roast in a farming village near Baracoa in southeast Cuba. The songs consist of a narrative line, verse, and chorus. The instruments – bass, guitar and drum – repeated simple rhythmic cells, much like the basic blues. 

The son is the primary root of non-African modern-day Cuban music. Its home is in the rural areas. It is very satirical, full of double meanings and humor and spontaneous in its improvisations. A close cousin to son is nengon, another rural-based music linked to quiriba. Nengon, most often heard at farm parties, is a running musical narrative improvised on the spot, often satirical and ironic, that pokes fun at people’s pretensions and foibles. 

A quick sketch of the Cuban music tree would be: quiriba-son-nengon. From this trunk branches off contradanza-danzon-habanera. The mambo was created directly from the danzon, with its French-Haitian-African-Spanish influences. The chachacha comes form the mambo. The tango is derived from the contradanza, as is the meringue of Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. Salsa is also an outgrowth of the contradanza, which has its roots in Old English folk dances by way of the French royal court in the early 1600s. The salsa actually originated in Uruguay when it was province of Argentina. Afro-Cuban roots extend to West African music brought to the New World by African enslaved peoples. The polyrhythms, syncopation, polymer-couplets and fast five-beat of Cuban drumming come directly from African traditions. The Santeria bata drumming is an excellent example. Abakua dancing, chants and drumming is the other major African influence in Cuban music. 
The rumba is an indigenous Cuban dance with its taproot in Africa. There three kinds of authentic Cuban rumba: yambu, guaguanco, and columbia.

Yambu, the oldest of the three dances, is the slowest, purposively so older men can follow the steps of the young woman encouraging him to be young and vital again. This dance comes from the Abakua tradition. 
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Guaguanco is a vigorous couple’s dance, a dance of seduction, in which the man attempts to “vaccinate” the women. It is a graphic dance of flirtation, male posturing, and female coyness. The woman has the final say in accepting the man’s offer.

​Columbia is a solo male performance to display virtuosity, male prowess and dancing skills. The most African of the rumbas, the columbia started with sugar cane workers around Matanzas. As there were no women in the cane camps, the men danced alone as a form of aesthetic sporting competition.