Ilegales, also billed as Los Ilegales, is a Dominican group founded in 1995 and led since then by Vladimir Dotel. It began as a merengue house act, the electronic-leaning form of merengue that dominated the middle of that decade, and has since worked in hip hop, Latin pop and ballad across more than a dozen albums.

Fortaleza Ozama

The group debuted in 1995 at the Fortaleza Ozama, in the colonial quarter of Santo Domingo, as a quartet: Dotel alongside Álvaro Guzmán, Anthony de la Cruz and Jason González. Their first record carried their own name and won them prizes in Mexico and Chile.

Rebotando

Their second production appeared in 1997 with Sueño Contigo, Rebotando, El Taqui Taqui and Como un Trueno, and with it the first move toward romantic material. Guzmán had left before the recording and was replaced by Rafael Rivera.

In January 1998, days after they filmed the video for Sueño Contigo, Jason González died. The group was three years old. A month later the Viña del Mar festival paid tribute to him, and the band reorganised around a new line-up.

The line-ups

The membership has changed more than a dozen times. En la Mira came in 1998 with Enamorao and Baila; a live album recorded in Santo Domingo the following year collected the hits of the first three. On Time turned the quartet into a trio and carried Una Copa de Licor, Chocolate and El Termómetro. Marca Registrada, In the Room and La República followed, the last of them with a duet alongside Monchy & Alexandra.

Esto Es

The group opened the following decade with a single recorded alongside Johnny Ventura and Vakeró, pairing the founding voice of modern merengue with one of the country’s urban rappers on the same track.

Ayántame

Ayántame, released in 2012, reached number one on the Billboard tropical chart and stayed there four weeks. Chucuchá followed the next year with a merengue built on electronic production, and La Pastilla entered the Dominican charts in 2015. The albums have kept coming: El Sonido, Inagotable, Tropicalia and others.

The company they keep

They belong to the same movement as Proyecto Uno, the other large Dominican group of the merengue house era, and their catalogue is one of the fullest records of what that fusion sounded like. They were nominated for a Latin Grammy for best pop album and for a Billboard award as tropical group, and have been recognised at the Viña del Mar festival more than once.