This undated photo provided by Premium Latin Music shows the band Aventura. With the release of their album titled “The King of Bachata”, the band have dubbed themselves the actual “kings” of the musical genre. (AP Photo/Premium Latin Music, HO)                This photo, “Aventura” is copyright (c) 2006 Rogelio A. Galaviz C. and made available under by a Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC 2.0) license

With the exception of Reggaeton emerging as a pop music force with in the last couple of years, Bachata has been the “it” dance music throughout Latin America. From its roots in the Dominican Republic, Bachata has come a long way.

Throughout the Dominican Republic Bachata was viewed as music of the lower classes. It was often associated with the poor and played typically in brothels. Despite this, the music has persisted. It was a new wave of Bachata singers known as Bachateros such as Antony Santos, Luis Vargas and Raulin Rodriguez who helped give the music a new fresh sound and newfound popularity in the Dominican Republic.

In 1990, Juan Luis Guerra released the album Bachata Rosa which introduced Bachata to the mainstream. The album, while widely successful and spawning classic songs such as Burbujas de Amor, failed to attain the cool factor.

Then came Aventura, born to Dominican and Puerto Rican families in the Bronx, New York seized Bachata and changed the genre forever.

The members of Aventura , credited the various genres of music they listened to while growing up in the Bronx as influencing their music. Besides Bachata they listened to Salsa, Merengue, Hip-Hop, Rock n Roll and RNB. They admired non-Bachata artists such as Marc Anthony, Jay-z, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. These influences would become an integral part of their sound which differentiated Aventura from Bachata artists who came before them.

Everything about them was different. They were young Americanized kids from the Bronx with a lot of personality, they dressed like urban music stars, possessed an unusual air of confidence and used slang spoken by people in the Bronx in the lyrics of their songs.

It seemed they revolutionized Bachata overnight and quickly climbed the Latin music charts. They graduated from singing at block parties, to selling out the United Palace Theater in Washington Heights, New York to becoming Latin Music superstars selling out Madison Square Garden and arenas in the U.S. and throughout Latin America.

Bachata fever has taken over Latin American and Aventura was at the forefront. Bachata would not be where it is today without Aventura. It would not have the cool factor it now has. They had the perfect recipe for success based on who they are, where they originated from, how they dressed, and their musical influences. All these elements combined allowed Aventura to create individual sounds uniquely their own. Because of this, they not only became the Kings of Bachata but, Latin music superstars. Aventura took a genre that was looked upon with disdain from people within their home country of the Dominican Republic and turned into one of the most popular Latin dance music in the world.

For more in-depth conversation of this post check out my post on Soundcloud.