According to musicologist Yvonne Daniel, the Spanish word "rumba" stems from African origins and its meaning varies slightly throughout the Spanish speaking world. A number of related West African words such as "tumba" and "tambo" refer to a collective celebration involving music and dance. In Spain, the word "rumba" refers to a carousel, though in most of Latin America, the world refers to a gala meal or high time. The enormous popularity of rum in Caribbean drinking culture may also have played a role in the formation of the word "rumba" to describe the genre.
Traditional rumba incorporates instruments of African origin adapted to the humble means of Cuba's slave population. In the early days, rumba players would essentially use whatever they could find as percussion, including spoons, pots and blocks of wood. Typical rumba instruments include three drums known Quinto, Salidor and Tres Golpes; metal shakers called nkembi and wooden boxes called cajones.
A sensuous dance that emphasizes liberal hip and torso movements over codified steps, rumba stems from a long lineage of similar dances found in West Africa and the Kongo-Angolan region that today comprises Zaire, Angola and the Congo. Yuka and Makuta, known as Congolese or Bantu dances among Cubans, share many traits with the rumba. As with the rumba, these dances feature sensuous hip movements and seductive interactions between male and female partners.
Rumba developed among slave communities in Havana as a form a celebratory music and dance to escape the harsh realities of slavery. Africans from different tribes in their native lands lived and worked together, and each shared their distinct musical heritages. Much of this interaction occurred in the "solares," large subdivided houses where the poorest Cubans were forced to live. Here, both dark- and light-skinned Cubans congregated to uplift their spirits in the darkest of times by dancing the rumba. Early rumba songs often spoke of politics and heavily satirized the ruling class.
From its early days onward, rumba was never a unified movement or classifiable genre per se. Though the underlying rhythmic structure or "clave" was consistent, the tempo was often modified to suit different cultural attitudes. Cuba's middle class preferred a slower, tamer version of the rumba called "son." In Havana, rumba was almost exclusively a couples dance, whereas slave communities in rural areas developed a male solo form due to the gender imbalance during the slave trade.