Aventura
is perhaps the most recognizable name in bachata music worldwide and is also the first major bachata band to have come out of the Dominican diaspora rather than from the island itself. The Bronx-based group’s eclectic mix of bachata with US R&B and other non-Dominican styles has helped make the group enormously popular among young Latinos in the United States and with audiences across Europe and in Latin America. Despite Aventura’s international success they have received lukewarm reception from bachata’s traditional listeners, and the band’s impact on the sound of bachata remains limited. Other young bachateros attempting to follow Aventura’s bachata-hybrid approach have so far not attained any significant success.

In the 1980s and 1990s, the growing Dominican population in the United States became an important fan base for bachata. Many Dominican immigrants came from a social milieu that didn’t stigmatize bachata in the way the mainstream in their native country had. As they made economic progress and continued to patronize their music of choice, they provided an impetus for bachata’s rise to acceptance and popularity. First Blas Durán, and later Antony Santos, Luis Vargas and Raulín Rodríguez were the chief beneficiaries of the increased purchasing power of these “Dominican Yorks,” who bought CDs and flocked to concerts in American cities like New York, Miami and Providence, Rhode Island. As a result, the children of these Dominican immigrants grew up listening to bachata, creating a generation of American-born bachateros. ...