And Ralph Mercado, owner of RMM Records and the producer of the salsa festival here, went bankrupt in the wake of legal troubles. Jerry Masucci, co-founder of fabled Fania Records, which sparked the salsa boom of the ‘60s and ‘70s, died unexpectedly in 1997 at 62.
This is the first time in more than half a century that there is no dominant Latin label in New York City, arguably the capital of salsa. Traditional salsa is being diluted in modern brews of house, hip-hop, pop and electronica.Īlthough premature reports of salsa’s death have circulated before, there are some uniquely worrisome aspects to the music’s lull in the new millennium. For the new generation of Latin performers, such as New York’s Yerba Buena or Miami’s SPAM All Stars, fusion is the future. Today young people consider salsa old-fashioned, say George and others. “There’s no one coming up now who seems to want to do this music.” “It looks pretty bleak,” says Sergio George, the veteran producer who minted the Marc Anthony sound of the early 1990s.
