…or bugalú? The “latin boogaloo” seems to have emerged in the 1960’s out of the Puerto Rican barrios of New York City. These young Puerto Rican-Americans were represented in the classic musical and film West Side Story. If you remember, there is a scene where the Puerto Rican and New York kids are all together at a high school dance and they all break into a latin dance (composed by Leonard Bernstein) and they all yell “mambo!” So these young people are all listening to latin rhythms, rhythm and blues and the early rock ‘n’ roll of the day. The boogaloo was apparently born out of this cultural atmosphere.

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