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Gender Performance in Salsa

The 1960s and 70s were not only a revolutionary time for salsa, but also for gender equality. Younger generations in the US were starting to embrace sexuality more openly and question traditional gender roles. While salsa music and dance show Latino pride, they also showcase different ways salseros portrayed their gender identities.

Lyrics

Salsa is dominated by straight male performers. An extreme example of this would be Héctor Lavoe’s 1978 song “Bandolera” (Villain), in which Lavoe uses a word in Puerto Rican slang to invoke negative stereotypes about women. In his lyrics, he addresses a woman who has deceived him, calls her a gossip, and threatens to hit her. In this tune, he performs a specific type of masculinity through the aggressive stance he has taken against this “bandolera.”

A contrasting example would be Willie Colón and Legal Alien’s 1989 song “Junto a Ti” (With you). Rather than criticizing women, the lyrics of this tune praise a beloved woman. Here, a man sings of a woman empowering him- he is no longer afraid of dying, so long as he is with her. Masculinity in this song is defined through passion and devotion to a partner.

Women in salsa have also performed different forms of femininity in their music. One example is La India’s 1991 interpretation of “Ese hombre” (That Man). The salsa version by La India is a cover of the 1979 original ballad from the Spanish star Rocío Jurado. In this song, the lyrics tell of a woman victimized by a man: “that man” appears “divine” but ends up being insecure and egotistical.

A contrasting example would be Albita Rodriguez’s 1995 song “Qué manera de quererte” (What a way to love you). In this song, she expresses the joy of being in love with the refrain “What a way to love you.” When Gilberto Santa Rosa originally recorded the song in 1993, the lyrics asked “Where can I live but in your body?” Albita changed “body” to “sex” in her 1995 recording, making female sexual desire more explicit in her lyrics.

Red, gold, and blue sequin dress designed with horizontal, varied stripes and large open sleeves.
Dress worn by Celia Cruz, 1970s.

Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of the Celia Cruz Knight Estate. No Known Copyright Restrictions.

Style, Fashion, and Appearance

Appearances are also part of defining salseros’ gender on and off stage. Performers like Celia Cruz, La Lupe, and La India present traditionally feminine personas in their performances through sparkling clothing, jewelry, big hair, strong makeup, and well-manicured nails. While there are similarities, each salsera’s feminine presentation is unique.

Celia Cruz is a figure in salsa well-known for her big and colorful outfits and wigs. Cruz identified with traditional gender roles, claiming to do as many house-wife chores for husband Pedro Knight as she could with her demanding tour schedule. Scholar Christina Abreu highlights Cruz’s 1992 song “Sazón” (seasoning) as an example of her expressing these values. In this song, Cruz claims to wash his shirt and make his food, which makes him “sabrosón” (tasty).

La Lupe, another Afro Cuban salsera, also had big, bold outfits and hair. Lupe’s vocal style drew heavy inspiration from African American soul and jazz singers, and she was known for her emotional performances. You can hear this in her powerful recording of the 1969 song “Puro Teatro” (Pure Theater). Her movements on stage went past dancing, including theatrical moves like ripping off jewelry and shoes on stage. Her fans called her “La Yiyiyi” for her yelps and cries during performances. Her persona was more sexually and emotionally direct than Cruz’s. Her 1961 hit “Con el Diablo en su cuerpo” (With the Devil in Her Body) offers an example of this in her music. Her theatrical and passionate performances additionally granted her the titles “Queen of Latin Soul” and even “Queen of Sabor” (Queen of Flavor).

Male performers like Eddie Palmieri, Ray Barretto, Willie Colón, Rubén Blades, Tito Puente, and Pete Rodriguez have also visually presented their Latino masculinity in different ways. In concerts, they usually have either dressed in guayaberas or suits with their jackets unbuttoned, but each have their own personal styles in both music and fashion.

Scholar Pablo Yglesias demonstrates how album covers became a platform for male salsa artists to address stereotypes about Latino men. Ray Barretto’s deep V-neck and characteristic Superman shirt from his 1973 album cover Indestructible, for example, shows Barretto, a Latino man, as a superhero. This pushed back against negative stereotypes about Latino men as criminals or dangerous.

“Ray’s black frame glasses were already part of his image, so my idea was to have him be like Clark Kent, taking them off… Years later, Ray said to me, ‘You know Izzy, much as I was afraid of that thing, people come up to me with a smile and thank me for being a Latin superhero.’” - Izzy Sanabria, quoted from Yglesias, Pablo, “Échale Salsita” in Cocinando! Fifty Years of Latin Album Cover Art (Princeton: Princeton Architectural Press, 2005), 113.

Performance Spaces

Additionally, some activists utilized salsa’s name, growing popularity, and association with Latino struggles to create more inclusive feminist spaces. An example of this would be the Salsa Soul Sisters, founded in 1974 by Rev. Dolores Jackson.

Salsa Soul Sisters represents the oldest Black lesbian and lesbians of color womanist organization in the United States. Many of their former meeting sites are considered landmarks in LGBTQ and Women’s history. One notable example is the Washington Square United Methodist Church & Parish House in New York City. While the group was not focused on salsa performance or engagement, music featured prominently in their meetings.

Salsa rose to prominence in a time of questioning gender roles and social activism. Salsa still is and was a straight male-dominated genre. The traditional gender binary is still frequently reinforced in salsa. But salsa has also been made into a platform for expressing different gendered identities within its music, its performers, and even its namesake.

This article was researched and written by Elisa Alfonso, contributing scholar to Oíste? Listening to the Salsa Stories of Afro Latin Music.

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Last updated: August 2, 2023