The expression world beat was coined by the music industry in the 1980s to categorise the hybrid urban dance-oriented music resulting from a cross-fertilization of third and first world styles. Pioneering Western practitioners included the pop / rock artists Paul Simon, David Byrne and Peter Gabriel, who started amalgamating African and Latin influences into their output. The earliest world beat stars from the developing world to achieve international prominence were Nigeria's King Sunny Adé, Montserrat's Arrow and Haiti's Boukman Eksperyans, who each had short-lived major recording deals with Island Records and / or its subsidiary Mango Records. Salsa and merengue produced in the USA and Latin Caribbean was largely disregarded by the world beat industry until Ry Cooder's Buena Vista Social Club project recorded in Cuba for the British World Circuit label attained mainstream success in the late '90s. One consequence of this has been a tendency for world beat opinion formers to regard Cuba as the primary source of "authentic" Latin music. - John Child