El Grupaso is a Dominican merengue típico group formed in October 2025, when the singer Jorge Lewis, the accordionist Julio Swing, and the percussionist Ronald Tambora stepped away from Urbanda, the band they had spent fourteen years building, to work under a new name.

The break with Urbanda

The three had been together since Urbanda's founding, and the decision to leave, as Jorge Lewis told Diario Libre days after it became public, had been discussed for years before it was finally made: they wanted more creative freedom and a faster release pace than the older structure allowed. Urbanda's management answered that the name itself had never belonged to the departing members and kept the group going under new singers and accordionist. Lewis, Swing, and Tambora kept working together as El Grupaso, with new masters registered under the new name.

Roots and rhythm

Each of the three grew up inside the genre. Julio Swing's grandfather and uncle played accordion before him; Ronald Tambora learned percussion watching his father play hotel gigs as a child; Jorge Lewis started singing at seventeen or eighteen, at university, and found in the audience's reaction the push to keep going. Between them they argue that típico now moves at a different speed than it used to: a single song can no longer carry a group for six months, so El Grupaso works with several tracks in rotation at once.

Santo Domingo as a stronghold

Although típico is historically associated with the Cibao, El Grupaso has built a strong following in Santo Domingo, where, according to Tambora, crowds sing every song in the set rather than waiting for the hits. The group has also returned to markets it had not played in years, including a 2026 show in Tampa billed as its first appearance there after more than three years.

Repertoire and collaborations

Its catalogue under the new name mixes original songs with genre crossovers built for its faster release pace. «El Truquito», a típico remix made with Ilegales, came out in January 2026 with its own video, and «Por Un Pendejo No Se Llora», a merengue típico version of a song written by the Colombian singer Manuel Turizo, followed weeks later. «Me Va a Extrañar», written by Vladimiro Tosetto, and the live staples «Te Olvidé», «Te Lloro», «El Tiguerito», «Cuidarte El Alma», and «El Pobre Maelo» round out its set list. The group has also announced an unreleased song with Pavel Núñez, a fusion recorded with Manny Cruz, and a track written for them by the producer Alcover, known for his work with Don Omar.

Legacy

Less than a year after the split, El Grupaso stands as a clear recent case of a típico audience following its voices rather than its name: within months of leaving Urbanda, Lewis, Swing, and Tambora carried that following into a run of new, non-live releases under the new name, from a genre crossover with Ilegales to a merengue típico version of a song written for another market altogether. That pace, and a following built as strongly in Santo Domingo as in the Cibao, is the clearest argument its members make for a genre they say can renew its name without losing its audience.