Puerto Rican plena, also nicknamed “el periodico cantado (“the sung newspaper”), formed as a distinct musical genre in the late 1800s when sugar cane plantation laborers, manual workers and former slaves moved to Puerto Rico’s urban areas and communicated the news of the day to each other through music and dance.
A Puerto Rican plena ensemble consists of a variety of percussion instruments such as guiros, congas, timbales, maracas and panderos (small tamborines), as well as a 4-stringed Puerto Rican guitar known as a cuatro. The plena has no fixed rhythmic form, but, unlike bomba which is primarily African, weaves in a multitude of rhythms from Puerto Rico’s Spanish, African and Taino cultures. Enjoy the plena in this video while grooving along with these gentlemen, who are clearly having an extraordinary time.
