Edilio Paredes is a Dominican bachata and bolero artist born in 1945 in San Francisco de Macorís, a city in the Cibao region that has produced numerous significant figures in Dominican popular music. He belongs to the pioneering generation of bachata musicians who developed and sustained the genre during the decades when it was dismissed by Dominican mainstream society as music of the poor and marginalized.

Paredes contributed recordings and performances that helped bachata survive its years of social stigma, preserving the genre's emotional authenticity and guitar-based intimacy at a time when it had few champions among the cultural establishment. His work in bolero also demonstrated a broader musical sensibility rooted in the romantic vocal traditions of the Caribbean.

As bachata eventually gained acceptance and international acclaim, artists like Paredes were recognized as essential figures in its history — musicians who kept the flame alive when it would have been easier to abandon it.