The Caribbean island of Cuba has been influential in the development of multiple musical styles in the 19th and 20th centuries. Cuban music has its principal roots in Spain and West Africa, but over time has been influenced by diverse genres from different countries, notably France, the United States and Jamaica. Reciprocally, Cuban music has been immensely influential in other countries, contributing not only to the development of jazz and salsa, but also to Argentinian tango, Ghanaian high-life, West African Afrobeat, and Spanish nuevo flamenco.

Cuban music of high quality includes classical music, some with predominantly European influences, and much of it inspired by both Afro-Cuban and Spanish music. Within Cuba, there are also many popular musicians working in the rock and reggaeton idioms.

Early Cuban music was heaviliy influenced by the Santería religion, in which percussion is an inherent element. In the late 19th century, the habanera developed out of the contradanza which had arrived from Haiti after the Haitian revolution. The main innovation from the contradanza was rhythmic, as the habanera incorporated Spanish and African influences into its repertoire.

The European influence on Cuba's later musical development is most clearly seen in danzón, which is an elegant dance that became established in Cuba before spreading throughout Latin America, especially Mexico. Its roots lay in European social dances like the English country dance, French contredanse and Spanish contradanza. Danzón evolved from the habanera by incorporating African elements in the 1870s.

Son is a major genre of Cuban music and has helped lay the foundation for most of Cuba's later musical styles. It arose in the eastern part of the island among Spanish-descended farmers, and is thought to have been derived from changui, which also merged the Spanish guitar and African rhythms and to which son is closely related. Son music came to Havana in 1920 due to the efforts of legendary groups like Trío Matamoros. Son was urbanised, with trumpets and other new instruments, and incorporated influences such as American popular music and jazz via the radio. Son's characteristics vary widely today, with the defining characteristic being a bass pulse that comes before the downbeat (known as anticipated bass), giving son and its derivatives (including salsa) its distinctive rhythm.

Unlike the ballroom form found elsewhere, the Cuban rumba is spontaneous, improvised and lively, coming from the dockworkers of Havana and Matanzas. Percussion (including requinto and tumbadoras drums and 'palitos' or sticks, to play a cáscara rhythm) and vocal parts (with a leader and a chorus) are combined to make a danceable and popular form of music.

In the 1940s and 1950s, Arsenio Rodriguez, one of Cuba's most famous soneros, is considered to have brought son back to its African roots by adapting the guaguanco style to son, and by adding a cowbell and conga to the rhythm section. He also expanded the role of the tres as a solo instrument. Rodriguez introduced the montuno (or mambo section) for melodic solos and his style became known as son montuno.

In the 1940s, Chano Pozo formed part of the bebop revolution in jazz, playing conga and other Afro-Cuban drums. Conga was integral part of what became known as Latin jazz, which began in the 1940s among Cubans in New York City.

Benny Moré, considered by many as the greatest Cuban singer of all time, was at his heyday in the 1950s. He was gifted with an innate musicality and fluid tenor voice which he colored and phrased with great expressivity. Moré was a master all the genres of Cuban music, including son montuno, mambo, guaracha, guajira, cha cha cha, afro, canción, guaguancó and bolero.

In the 1970s and onwards, son montuno was combined with other Latin musical forms, such as the mambo and the rumba, to form contemporary salsa music, which is immensely popular throughout Latin America and the Hispanic world.

Cuba's political and social turmoil in the 1960s and 1970s also produced a socially aware form of new music called nueva trova. It arose from travelling trovadores in the early 20th century, including popular musicians like Joseíto Fernández (best-known for Guantanamera). Nueva trova was always intimately connected with Castro's revolution, but its lyrics frequently expressed personal rather than social issues, focusing on intense emotional issues. Son and nueva trova remain the most popular forms of modern Cuban music, and virtually all Cuban artists play music derived from one of these two genres.

There are still many practitioners of traditional son montuno, such as Eliades Ochoa, who have recorded and toured widely as a result of the upturn in interest in world music since the mid-1990s which has brought Cuban music back into the limelight. This development went hand-in-hand with the post-Soviet Union periodo especial in Cuba, during which the economy began opening up to tourism.

The watershed event was the release of Buena Vista Social Club in 1997, a recording of veteran Cuban musicians organised by the American musician and producer, Ry Cooder. The album became an immense worldwide hit and made stars of octogenarian Cuban musicians such Ibrahim Ferrer, Joseíto Fernández and Compay Segundo, whose careers had stagnated in the 1950s. Buena Vista resulted in several follow-up recordings and spawned a film of the same name, as well as tremendous interest in other Cuban groups.

In subsequent years, dozens of singers and conjuntos made recordings for foreign labels and toured internationally. The interest of world audiences in exile and pre-revolutionary musicians has stirred some resentment among younger musicians who feel that their work and evolution of forty years is being ignored.