Son cubano is the Cuban musical genre that is a major root of salsa music and features clave rhythm.
Son developed in eastern Cuba, especially around Santiago de Cuba, from the late 19th century through the early 20th century. It blended Spanish canción and guitar traditions with African-derived rhythmic and percussion practices. Its characteristic instrumentation and call-and-response patterns became foundational to later Cuban popular music.
The clave is both a pair of wooden sticks and the repeating rhythmic timeline they play. Son commonly uses a 3–2 or 2–3 son-clave pattern, although the pattern’s orientation depends on the arrangement. Son montuno, a more rhythmically extended form, also became especially important to salsa.
Salsa emerged much later, particularly in New York during the 1960s and 1970s, drawing on Cuban son, mambo, guaracha, Puerto Rican traditions and other Caribbean styles. Merengue, bossa nova and reggaeton are related Latin American genres, but none is the canonical answer to this question.