Ramón Antonio Reyes Alcántara, known as El Cherry Scom, is a Dominican dembow singer, rapper and songwriter. He is recognisable by a vocal register far higher than most of his contemporaries and by a deliberately loud visual identity, and he is among the dembow artists who have taken the genre furthest outside the country.

Santo Domingo

He was born in Santo Domingo in 1991 and came up through the local dembow circuit, working the underground for years before anything reached a wider audience.

Baje con Trenza

The turn came at the end of 2019 with Baje con Trenza, made with Kiko el Crazy and executive produced by the Alofoke broadcaster Santiago Matías, who has backed dembow from the radio for years. The Puerto Rican singer Ozuna took the track onto a remix, the video reached the top of what was trending in the country, and Rolling Stone picked the remix for its Song You Need to Know column, which was the first time his name travelled abroad as criticism rather than as export.

The catalogue

Tukuntazo, De Manhattan Pa El Bronx and Corre Corre followed, all built inside the fast tempo the genre works in. In 2021 he appeared on the remix of La Mamá de la Mamá alongside El Alfa, CJ, Wisin, Busta Rhymes and Anitta, a line-up that measured how far Dominican dembow had moved from its own neighbourhoods.

Two years later he was on La Gringa, again with El Alfa and with Yandel, Lil Jon, Duki and Polimá Westcoast, putting dembow in the same room as reggaeton, hip hop and Latin trap. He also recorded Melacomo with Haraca Kiko and the singer Aleesha.

The voice

What separates him is the delivery. The high register, the abrupt changes of flow and the tonal play give the records a restlessness that identifies him within a bar. He has named Daddy Yankee and Ozuna as his references, two artists who showed that Caribbean urban music could travel without giving up its rhythm.