Both islands were Indigenous Taíno homelands, then became early Spanish colonies with encomienda systems that exploited Native labor and led to demographic collapse.wikipedia+3
Over time, each developed a three‑way mix of Spanish, African, and Taíno influences in language, religion, food, and music, but the proportions and later overlays diverged.discoverpuertorico+2
Cuba became a massive sugar‑plantation economy, importing very large numbers of enslaved Africans well into the 19th century, which made African religions, rhythms, and aesthetics especially central to national culture.cubaunbound+2
Puerto Rico also used African slave labor, but on a smaller scale, with a somewhat stronger survival of Taíno cultural and genetic elements and a different balance between smallholders and large estates.reddit+2
Under Spain, Cuba evolved into a richer, more strategic sugar colony with tighter commercial links to Europe and later heavy migrations from different Spanish regions, which helped create a distinct Creole elite and republican nationalist culture.wikipedia+2
After 1898, both islands passed to U.S. control, but Puerto Rico became an unincorporated U.S. territory while Cuba became a formally independent republic, setting up different political institutions, citizenship regimes, and cultural reference points.britannica+2
Cuba’s 1959 revolution and subsequent socialist state reshaped everyday life—property relations, religion’s public role, artistic institutions, and emigration patterns—giving Cuban culture a strong association with revolutionary nationalism and state‑sponsored arts.cubaunbound+1
Puerto Rico’s path as a U.S. commonwealth produced a different mix: large‑scale circular migration to the mainland, deep U.S. economic and media influence, and a politics organized around status options (statehood, commonwealth, independence), all of which inflect language, music, and identity.pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih+2
Both are Spanish‑speaking Caribbean societies, but their accents, slang, and code‑switching habits differ, partly because of distinct African, Canary Island, and later U.S. influences, and partly because Puerto Ricans have had a century of direct integration into U.S. institutions and English‑dominant spaces.discoverpuertorico+1
Music and religion show the contrast clearly: Cuba’s cultural canon leans heavily on styles like son, rumba, and Santería‑linked practices, while Puerto Rico’s leans more toward bomba, plena, and later salsa and reggaetón embedded in a U.S.–Caribbean circuit, even though all of these forms cross‑pollinate.reddit+2