Cha-cha-chá is a dance music genre that originated in 20th-century Cuban music. It was created by composer and violinist Enrique Jorrín in 1953.

Jorrín incorporated the musicians’ voices into the danzones, which were musically performed by the orchestra’s instruments. To give the music greater power, the musicians sang in chorus, making the lyrics more audible.

During his early years as a composer, Enrique Jorrín devoted himself to composing danzones, carefully following their characteristics and employing their musical elements. Over time, he made innovations and changed some of their parts. These musical parts were very popular with the public, leading him to separate them from the Danzón, becoming what he called Cha-Cha-Cha.

The name Chachachá indicates the three steps performed by the dancers to accentuate the rhythm of the melody and the strumming of the güiro.

Like the Danzón, the Cha-Cha-Cha was performed in the French charanga format. This new Cuban musical genre helped revive this format, which had been falling by the wayside. The French charanga featured a string section, piano, percussion, bass, and flute. The themes of its lyrics are from everyday life, humorous, and have double meanings, in a picaresque style. Its structure is a short instrumental introduction, an expository section sung in unison, and a montuno.

“La engañadora” is the most representative song of this Cuban musical genre, dedicated to a young woman from the central Havana corner of Prado and Neptuno, whom all men had to look at. The beautiful lady, a real character, owed her voluptuousness to pillows hidden under her clothes. “How silly are the women who try to deceive us,” the chorus says, amid a silence produced by the instruments.

It was in Mexico where it was most widely disseminated and achieved immense popularity, then spread to the rest of Latin America and also to the United States.

The most important groups that performed the Cha-Cha-Chá were the Orquesta América, Los Cariñosos, the Enrique Jorrín Orchestra, and the Orquesta Aragón, the latter known as the stylists of the Cha-Cha-Chá. These musical groups have been its leading exponents for decades.

Pedro Junco, Enriquillo Cerón, Isabelita Serpa, Ruddy Calzado, Jorge Zamora, Félix Reyna, Chucho Martínez Gil, Richard Egües and Frank Pérez, among many others, also stood out as authors of the genre.