Vitico, billed as El Nene Bomba and El Chico Bomba, is a Dominican merengue singer who recorded as a child at the end of the nineties. He is the son of Víctor Roque, the bandleader of Víctor Roque y La Gran Manzana.

No es manzana, es bomba

The whole act was built on his father’s name. La Gran Manzana was one of the best-known merengue orchestras of its generation, and the boy came out billed as the bomb rather than the apple — his lyrics said so directly, no es manzana, es bomba.

It is a joke that only works if everybody already knows the father, which in the Dominican Republic of 1999 they did. Being the son of a famous bandleader is a peculiar way to start a career: the door is open and the comparison is unavoidable.

El Chico Bomba

The album came out on 27 April 1999 through Caimán. El Presidente opens it, Pum Pum Pum El Nene Bomba is the one people remember, and El Burrito is his version of El Burrito Sabanero, the Christmas song every Latin American child sings.

Fuera de lo Común, El Nene del Swing, Colé, Guaya and Quiero a Mi Nena fill it out, and Nací Para Cantar followed in 2000 — a title that is either a boast or a family statement depending on how you read it.

The Roques

He was part of Los Roque, the family group. His sister Cynthia Roque, known as La Voz and born in New York in October 1983, sang chorus in La Gran Manzana.

Merengue has produced several of these families, where the orchestra and the household are the same institution and the children arrive already trained.