The musical genius Francisco Raúl Gutiérrez Grillo, better known as Machito said one time "There’s nothing new about Salsa. It’s the same old music we played in Cuba for fifty years. Only difference is now they play it badly." Even though there is some foundations in saying that because Cuban music was commodified through the Fania to the point of being unrecognizable, there has to be a differentiation between the moment when Salsa was born within a commercial project, and the moment when latinamericans in New York started the project to regain their afrodescendant cultural heritage through the creation of the “salsa from the barrio." The more commercial brand of Salsa does undoubtedly falls within Machito's definition, in spite of the first salsa which came from the base has to be rescued from this affirmation…show more content… The first thing to have in mind is that Larry Harlow admired Arsenio Rodriguez, he was his model to follow. Since the 40s, the modern son cubano was what could be called as the son “Arsenio“, which was praised by Harlow, and he always tried to join all of its elements into his own music. So if Harlow is just trying to reproduce the Arsenio Rodriguez musical expression, how can Machito states that it is bad, and has no new
