His cousin, who also sings and writes songs for the band, Henry Santos Jeter, is the only member of Aventura who was born in the Dominican Republic he moved to New York at the age of 14. The group’s lead singer and songwriter, named (ironically) Antony Santos, was born in the Bronx to a Dominican father and a Puerto Rican mother. The members of Aventura are typical of this generation, combining the influence of traditional bachata with the artistic and cultural diversity of life in New York. It was little wonder that they found themselves frustrated by the limits which they felt bachata’s position in the Dominican community imposed on them.

New guitars, computers and recording equipment were luxuries that earlier generations didn’t have access to. Growing up in the United States also afforded them opportunities beyond those available even to bachateros like Santos and Vargas. In multicultural New York, they were also influenced by other cultural values and lifestyles. The new generation didn’t only grow up with bachata, however, but also with other types of music prevalent in large American cities (e.g., rap, R&B, and rock). As a result, the children of these Dominican immigrants grew up listening to bachata, creating a generation of American-born bachateros. 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 they made economic progress and continued to patronize their music of choice, they provided an impetus for bachata’s rise to acceptance and popularity. Many Dominican immigrants came from a social milieu that didn’t stigmatize bachata in the way the mainstream in their native country had. In the 1980s and 1990s, the growing Dominican population in the United States became an important fan base for bachata. Other young bachateros attempting to follow Aventura’s bachata-hybrid approach have so far not attained any significant success.

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. 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. 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.

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