Monkey Black, born in 1986 in Santo Domingo Este, was a Dominican rapper and urban artist whose brief but impactful career placed him among the pioneering voices of Dominican hip hop and dembow. Growing up in the eastern reaches of Santo Domingo, he was immersed in the street culture and musical ferment of a neighborhood that was becoming central to the Dominican urban music movement.

His music combined the raw energy of hip hop with the driving rhythms of dembow, the Dominican variation of reggaeton that was developing its own distinct identity during the years of his artistic maturity. Monkey Black connected with a generation of young Dominicans who saw in urban music a language for expressing their experiences, aspirations, and frustrations with an authenticity that mainstream Dominican popular music rarely offered.

His death in 2014 at the age of twenty-seven robbed Dominican hip hop of one of its most promising voices, and his memory has been kept alive by fans and fellow artists who recognize his place in the early history of Dominican urban music.