Juan Flores
From Bomba To Hip-Hop (2000)
One of the prices that bugalú paid for raising the ire of Latin music elders is how the genre -- despite its popularity and wide-ranging influence -- has been marginalized in most conventional Latin music histories. It barely merits a footnote between the mambo and salsa eras. The lone exception to this has been the work by scholar Juan Flores in his essay, "Cha Cha With a Backbeat" which appeared in his 2000 book, From Bomba To Hip-Hop, which charts the cultural history of Puerto Ricans in America. It is an incredibly well-researched essay, providing one of the few, comprehensive histories of bugalú. There are some factual errors (strangely, Flores says that Willie Colon never recorded bugalús even though any quick listen to El Malo will instantly disabuse that notion) but it's still an important starting point to anyone with a deeper curiosity on the history and relevance of bugalú.