Latin is the loosest tag in this directory, covering a continent and a half. Salsa, cumbia, bachata, merengue, reggaeton, ranchera, tango, samba, bossa nova and sertanejo are all filed under or beside it, and they come from different countries, different decades and different social functions.
A rough map helps. Salsa was codified in New York by Cuban and Puerto Rican musicians and is brass-led and fast. Cumbia comes from Colombia and has spread across the continent, picking up a distinct Mexican and Argentine form along the way. Bachata and merengue are Dominican. Ranchera is Mexican and is the country's equivalent of country music. Tango is Argentine and Uruguayan. Samba and bossa nova are Brazilian and Portuguese-language, which separates them from everything above. Sertanejo is also Brazilian and is, by audience, the biggest of all of them.
Brass-heavy styles such as salsa and merengue are the ones most damaged by cheap encoding, because massed horns produce exactly the dense upper-midrange that encoders smear. If a salsa stream sounds harsh, the bitrate is usually the reason.
