Oscar Dominic is a Dominican bachata singer, songwriter and producer, born Oscar Enrique Socías Santana on 20 July 1991. He took the stage name, in his own words, in honour of the Dominican Republic.

Caramelo

His album arrived in May 2020 with twelve tracks — Hola, Cotorra, La Botella, 4 Paredes, Yo Toco Tu Piel, Toy Enamorao, Tú Te Ves Muy Bien, Un Día Más Sin Ti, Sin Filtro, Dile a Tu Jevo, Den Den Deo. He had recorded before that as Oscar La Entonación, and people still call him by it.

Bachata as a second language

Much of his work is the modern bachata version: a song that arrived in another genre, rebuilt on the guitar figure and the bongó. He has done Reik and Rauw Alejandro that way, and DJ Manuel Citro’s Pornochata came back as a bachata with him singing it.

This is a real trade and not a novelty. There is an international circuit of bachata dancers who need new material at a rate no single scene can supply, and the singers who feed it are performing a specific technical task: making a foreign melody sit correctly on a Dominican rhythm without either one sounding forced.

One of his versions crossed languages entirely — Portuguese sung over bachata, which he described as a fusion of Brazil and the Dominican Republic.

The company

He works with the producer Prophex and the crew billed as Bachata Gang, on records including Problemón and Obsesión, and with the Italian bachata DJ Tronky. Dominican dancers have taken his material onto the Malecón and dancers abroad have taken it into their classes.

The circuit he serves is largely outside the country, and the music on it is unmistakably from inside it.