Cuto Estévez was a Dominican musician born in 1915 whose career placed him at the origins of the modern Dominican popular music tradition. Active during the mid-twentieth century, he was among the artists who helped define the sound and character of Dominican merengue and tropical music during its formative decades, when the genre was crystallizing into the form that would eventually become the nation's musical signature. Estévez performed and recorded during a time when Dominican music was shaped by live performance and direct community engagement, before the age of mass media transformed the industry. He passed away in 1985, and his life's work stands as part of the foundational history of Dominican musical culture.