🇵🇷 This Puerto Rican Dance Was Once Punishable By Death
How Bomba Became Puerto Rico's Voice of Resistance
If you’ve ever been to Puerto Rico, then you already know that the culture doesn’t just live through music, it breathes through it. It’s in the way people walk, talk, cook, and celebrate. Music isn’t just background noise on the island — it’s a vibe that’s all about celebrating life, resilience, and identity.
Bomba is more than a genre. It’s a legacy.
Before reggaetón took over playlists and way before people started recording TikTok dance challenges in Trader Joe’s aisles, there was Bomba.
Bomba is Puerto Rico’s oldest musical tradition brought to the island by enslaved West Africans in the 17th century as a means of resistance, resilience, healing, and survival. Its roots are planted in the sugar plantations along the coastal towns of Loíza, Mayagüez, Ponce, and San Juan. It remains one of the most popular forms of folk music on the island and serves as significant evidence of its rich African heritage.
Bomba was how people coped, connected, and fought back without saying a word. The drums let them express anger, joy, grief, and rebellion. They danced at baptisms, weddings, and even while plotting uprisings. The rhythm carried secrets, strategies, and soul. The roots of this tradition can be traced to the Ashanti people of Ghana.
Even the word bomba is African. It shows up in Akan and Bantu languages, and in some dialects it means “the spiritual atmosphere of a gathering.”
The word bomba is rooted in the Akan language and the Bantu of Africa and can be traced to the Ashanti people of Ghana. In many Bantu dialects, “bomba” literally means “the spiritual atmosphere of a gathering.
Photo Credit: Corredor Afro
Movement as Language
Enslaved Africans were taken from different regions and tribes and spoke different languages, but they came together and built community and shared language through movement and rhythm. Bomba became the way they spoke to each other and the way and stayed human.
Bomba became the common language amongst slaves, but when plantation owners realized this, they killed people for dancing to it. Common colonizer behavior. Others were beaten and mistreated, yet they persisted. As Bomba evolved, it also became a coping mechanism and an expression of culture and resistance. When culture lives in your bones, it doesn’t go quietly and continues to live through the soul.
Bomba is a dialogue between the dancer in the center and the drummer. It’s all about energy and connection.
Unlike most music where the drum sets the beat, in Bomba, the dancer sets the rhythm for the drummer rather than the other way around. The dancer leads, and the drummer follows.
The dancer commands the drum. The movement drives the music. That’s power.
Bomba is a full-blown conversation with history, rhythm, and with the ancestors. It’s a vibe, a protest, and a prayer all rolled into one.
Without dance, there is no bomba. Bomba is the name of the drum, the dance, and the genre of rhythms. Every rhythm has a purpose. You need to listen to the lyrics closely and pay attention so that you can express the song’s message through your music and facial expressions.
From Margins to Mainstage
Historically, Bomba was male-dominated, and because of its African roots, it was often pushed aside or looked down on, but today there’s a strong female presence is common. From singers to drummers and dancers, performers and participants take space to reclaim their African heritage and express their frustrations about social issues such as inequality, gender violence, government corruption, and colonialism.
As some Puerto Ricans continue to leave the island — not by choice but out of necessity — and as Nuyoricans seek a deeper connection to their roots, culture and music become their lifeline, anchoring them wherever they go.
Puerto Rico will always be “la isla del encanto”. A place where nature is full of music, the trees hum with rhythm, the streets move to a beat, and even the coquí sings. 🐸🌴
