Ebenezer Guerra is a Dominican merengue típico singer and songwriter. He chose the traditional form at an age when almost nobody does, and he has built an audience by putting other people’s songs through it.

Early years and formation

He grew up poor and has said so plainly — in his house they moved the cooking pots around. He has been asked repeatedly why a young singer would choose típico over urban music, and has answered each time that the music is where his ear went.

Bolero Típico

Bolero Típico is the record that carried him, and by his own account they made it in a single night without knowing what they had. It went on to be the most-heard thing he has done, and a remix followed.

He rebuilt it again as a Musicologo Live Edition, cut in La Romana, and the same treatment has gone to Tonto Corazón and Cómo Te Pago.

Típico versions

The other half of the catalogue is conversions. He took the J Balvin Bizarrap session and rebuilt it in merengue típico, which sounds like a novelty and is not — it is the same operation Dominican music has always run on borrowed material, done to a record that was current rather than to a standard.

Hipócrita and the collaborations with El Blachy and Yailin belong to the same recent stretch. The releases come one single at a time rather than as albums.