Jibaro

Jibaro music is traditionally played by the eponymous mountain-dwelling Latin American culture that live primarily in Puerto Rico. It developed as a fusion of elements from the Spanish trovador music brought over from Andalusia in the late 16th century and local and African styles already present in Puerto Rico. In modern times, jibaro music is often played at social occasions such as weddings, though the people themselves have became endangered due to urbanization and an overall decrease in farmers. Ramito is arguably the most recognised commercially-recorded jibaro singer and is colloquially referred to as the king of jibaro. A jibaro ensemble typically consists of cuatro (the Puerto Rican variant was developed by the jibaros and remains the island's national instrument) and guitar (bordonúa and tiple), with percussion provided by the guiro. Other common backing instruments are maracas, bongos, congas and cowbell. Lyrics are often improvised with the underlying cuatro beneath the words usually following one of several set patterns. Instrumental cuatro breaks that are improvised or break away from these standardized melodies are referred to as tipica (or tropica). There are four forms of jibaro music: cadena, caballo and more commonly, seis (introduced by Spanish colonizers) and aguinaldo (traditional Christmas songs). Usually, the former two use copla rhyming structure (ABAB/ABCB) and the latter two use decima (a 10-line structure descended from Medieval Spanish poetry).