When Aventura was formed in the mid-1990s, lead singer Anthony "Romeo" Santos had no idea that they would someday be high on the Billboard charts and go where no bachata band had ever gone before - to Madison Square Garden as the headline act.

"When I began, this was all a hobby," says the Bronx-bred Santos in a telephone interview. "I started singing in the church choir, just trying to get some girls. I think I realized I had a gift when I sang my first song to my friends, and they said, 'That sounds nice. Who sings that?' And I said, 'No, those are my lyrics.'"

With their most recent release, "K.O.B.: Live" at No. 6 on the Billboard Latin Albums chart, and their current single, "Mi Corazoncito" at No. 3 on the singles chart, Aventura will stage a triumphant concert at the Garden next Saturday. "I remember the first concert we did, at United Palace," Santos says. "Now we're doing something the big dogs do, like Justin Timberlake and Beyoncé."

Aventura's formula for success was simple, although they had many doubters. They combined the concept of an R&B boy band - the group consists of two brothers and two cousins, all with the last name Santos - with the traditional Dominican music called bachata.

They took the country-ish earnestness of bachata vocalists and put an urban spin on it, and guitarist Lenny Santos accelerates the traditional pick-and-roll flourishes of bachata and brings them up to the speed of an uptown A express train.

"Our second album was called 'We Broke the Rules,' which refers to the concept of the group," Santos says. "Bachata was mainly one guy singing with a guitar who definitely didn't dress 'urban.' It also refers to singing in Spanglish, because it was strictly sung in Spanish. It's basically us saying we're doing everything no one dared to do before."

Aventura is not only part of a nationwide fusion of R&B, hip-hop and traditional Latin music, they have a worldwide following, including non-Spanish-speaking fans in Europe. While many traditional bachata songs function as parables about the difficulty of life, Aventura's lyrics focus strictly on matters of the heart. "I try to sing with sentimiento, with emotion, to make sure that even if you don't understand what I'm saying, you can relate," Santos says.

Earlier this month, Aventura appeared at the annual Dominican Parade, one considered to be a watershed for the presence of natives of the Dominican Republic in New York. But Santos, while proud of his heritage, thinks it meant something more.

"Our success as a people is not a Dominican thing, it's a Latino thing," he says. "Take 'El Cantante,' the movie about Héctor Lavoe with Marc and J.Lo. It was a serious look at the man and story, which was sad. That's a big accomplishment for us Latinos."

Ed Morales
Printed from Newsday.com