Course Leader for Popular Music Dr Sue Miller has published a paper in the Journal of European Popular Culture which challenges the essentialism inherent in much promotion of 'Latin' music in the United Kingdom today.

Drawing on her own UK-grown Cuban music dance band Charanga del Norte, she illustrates how issues of ethnicity and gender affect perceptions of authenticity. Since its inception 15 years ago, the band has featured musicians from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. Additionally, Charanga del Norte features more female musicians than most UK Latin bands.

Sue shows how promoters marketing the group have tended towards exoticization, using essentialized images of Latin culture, with an emphasis on not just the Cuban but all the Latin American members of the band. This saw the group originally promoted as a northern UK-based salsa band, although audiences and promoters gradually became more aware of other forms of traditional Cuban music as a result of the Buena Vista Social Club phenomenon. Promotion of at World Music events has taken a slightly different stance and focused more on publicizing the African roots of our 'Afro-Cuban' music.

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