Latin rhythms have infiltrated every branch of popular music. The Cuban habanera was incorporated into early jazz and blues; the Argentinean tango found its way into twenties dance band music; the Brazilian baion, samba and bossa nova styles wound their way through the century, colouring the sixties beat boom and the drum’n’bass of the nineties. But none had such a wide ranging influence as the rumba. Xavier Cugat’s percussion-led rumba orchestras helped to liberate dancers from stuffy foxtrots and waltzes in the 1930s, opening up an altogether more sensual world of excitement and exoticism. Rumba is everywhere in post-war popular music, from Elvis’ Hound Dog to the Clash’s Rock The Casbah. Thanks to Bo Diddley, its 3-2 clave rhythm became an integral part of American music; it continues to cast its spell over current day sounds. Machito brought the mambo from Havana to New York in 1941 but it wasn’t until 1954 that this dance really took off in mainstream America...