Latin American music refers to any music south of the United States, including music in the Caribbean Islands, Mexico, Central America and South America. With influences from European, African and Indigenous cultures, Latin American music is extremely diverse; one of the few similarities being the use of Latin-derived languages, mainly Spanish and Portuguese. This music is both vocal and instrumental; however, today it is primarily viewed as dance music, with popular dances like the Tango, Salsa and Samba.

The structure of Latin American music is based heavily on rhythm, specifically on a rhythmic pattern called clave: a 3-2 rhythmic building block especially used in Cuban music. To create offbeat rhythms in their music, Latin Americans also use syncopation: a technique where weak beats are accented instead of strong ones. Because of the music’s rhythmic focus, Latin American music is mostly played with percussion instruments, which you can see below by the vast amount of drums, maracas, tambourines and more offered at Apollo’s Axes.