User:KrazyKiwi/gotchas

Genre specific traps

I've been meaning to write some of these up for ages, some of them turn up fairly often when well meaning but misinformed editors try to apply global thinking to genres that use their own niche language. For my own use to save me having to explain it all again, and if there's interest or when there's enough of them, maybe worth pushing out to the wider wiki.

Son Cubano, or when 'and his son' does not actually mean 'and his son'

You sometimes see people trying to merge things like "Artist 1 and his son" into "Artist 1 & actual-child-of-Artist 1".

In Cuban music a son' is an orchestra (a specific kind of orchestra, but an orchestra nonetheless). Since many of these artists are multi-generational, some of the oldest and best son bands have been around for decades, long after the original band leader has retired or died. Also a lot of those older bandleaders children went into music, a lot of those band leaders do in fact have sons (and less often daughters) who are performing, sometimes with their parents.

Especially when the names have been translated to English, 'and his son' is very ambiguous. If it's in any way related to Cuban music, it's almost certainly meant to mean 'and his band'.

The opposite happens too, people don't realise that 'Bandleader & his orchestra" on English language Cuban music releases is actually just a translation of 'Bandleader y su son' and can usually be quite safely merged.

Do note, the 'son' name tradition exists in other Spanish speaking countries, according to wikipedia it's common in Mexican music but from a totally different tradition and linked to indigenous music. I don't know anything about those, so this explanation is only about the Son Cubano style.