It’s a sunny spring afternoon in south London and a selector is slamming down some of the slinkiest salsa cuts outside of San Juan. This is one of the hottest tickets in town, a party put on by respected promoter Movimientos at the Fox & Firkin pub in Lewisham. Down the front, the serious dancers sashay effortlessly, while hipsters on the fringes have a go and try not to tread on each other’s toes. At the controls: Hong Kong-born Gia Fu, a DJ who’s bringing salsa to new audiences. Her YouTube mixes, where she plays old records on her home set-up, have had millions of views. She tours all over the world and has noticed the demographic at her sets changing lately. “It’s still a shock to me that everywhere I go, there are younger people,” she says.
In the UK and other places without deep Latin roots, salsa has long been associated with the Strictly ballroom, a way to spice up your marriage, or both. “It’s not even just a Western perception,” Fu, who discovered salsa music through a teenage breakdancing competition in Hong Kong, says over FaceTime. She heard Roberto Roena’s 1970 track “Que Se Sepa” over the speakers and it kickstarted a record-collecting obsession. “When I first started doing this, a lot of my friends thought it was kind of lame,” she admits. “I think the majority of people in Europe or in Asia, when they hear the word salsa, would immediately think of ballroom dancing.”
