Eddie Santiago

Biography

c.1961, Puerto Rico. Santiago’s record-breaking solo debut Atrevido Y Diferente was full of saccharin-sweet romantic vocals and hip arrangements over a driving yet laid-back beat. It triggered a revival of salsa’s fortunes with a new wave - variously called salsa romántica, salsa erótica, salsa sensual or sexy salsa - and spawned a breed of new solo singers and bands and some comebacks, including Nicaraguan Luis Enrique, Willie González, Paquito Guzmán, Lalo Rodríguez, Roberto Lugo and Nino Segarra. Billboard’s former Latin music reporter, Carlos Agudelo, attempted a definition of salsa sensual: ‘This Puerto Rican song-and-dance craze mixes the Spanish lyrics of romantic ballads - borrowed shamelessly from pop records even before they have exhausted their life span - with the traditional salsa beat. It’s performed by a mostly new generation of soneros (salsa singers), all of them remarkably similar in the...

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