Aramis Villalona is a Dominican merengue singer and composer from Loma de Cabrera, in the northwestern province of Dajabón, one of the many children of Ángel Ramón Villalona and Virginia Arcadia Évora and a younger brother of Fernando Villalona and Angelito Villalona.

Orquesta Fernando Villalona

He began his professional career in the early 1980s inside his brother’s orchestra, where he sang lead on «Cerveza y Mesa», a José L. Carballo composition from the 1986 album «Para mi pueblo todo», and, in 1989, on «Agua de coco» — both of which became lasting merengue standards under the Villalona name.

Solo career

After more than a decade and a half as a featured voice in his brother’s band, he formed his own dance orchestra in the late 1990s, recording dancefloor hits such as «La toita» and «A la roca» and, later, the more romantic «Solo tú», carrying the orquesta-style merengue of the 1980s into later decades and touring the Dominican circuit and its diaspora abroad.

Legacy

From coming up in one of Dominican merengue’s defining family orchestras to leading his own for decades after, Aramis Villalona has kept the horn-driven merengue de orquesta of his generation in circulation for dancers who grew up on it and for the ones who came after.