Fania Records' Legacy Lives On With New Owners: 'It's The Culture'
Fania Records has a singular place in music history, mostly because it practically gave birth to the genre that became known as salsa. The musicians, singers, composers and arrangers who made music for the label will tell you that the song forms already existed — guaracha, son, mambo, cha cha cha, merengue — but what they did was give it a 1970's New York City swagger.
The music produced on Fania albums can also be considered the soundtrack of the Afro-Caribbean political awakening in the U.S. northeast. Puerto Ricans and Cuban-Americans flexed their political and musical muscles at the same time, gaining influence in both arenas along the way.
The storied legacy became a tangle of probate hearings and misplaced tape masters when co-founder Jerry Masucci died in 1997.
In 2005, Miami-based Emusica Entertainment Group the Fania catalog and publishing, assigning
