Juan de los Santos, who performs as Krisspy, is a Dominican merengue típico singer and composer from Santiago de los Caballeros. He fronts the group Krisspy y su Bombazo Típico, bills himself as El Artista de los Típicos, and has spent his career presenting accordion music with the staging and manner of an urban act.

El Bombazo Típico

His first album, El Bombazo Típico, came out in 2004 on Allegro Productions and carried Chequeando, Las Mujeres de Ojos Grandes, La Paga and La Calambrina. A live record followed the same year, and the band was appearing on Dominican television with it by then. Yo Soy el Flow came in 2006, and after it El Guto Ta Aquí, Homenajes Típico and Palos Típicos.

The song most closely attached to him is El Maíz, which he wrote. Cuándo Volverás, El Gallo Mojao, Ojo Grande, El Pompo and Uno No Sabe Lo Que Tiene belong to the same run, and Mi Último Deseo, an adaptation of a Mexican song, was among his most played.

Yo soy el flow

The phrase he built the act on is the point of it. Merengue típico is accordion, güira and tambora, played by musicians who mostly present themselves as countrymen; Krisspy took that instrumentation and put an urban performer’s bearing on top of it, which is what brought him a younger audience than the genre usually reaches. He describes himself as versatile and records outside típico when it suits him.

The tribute to Sandy Reyes

His homage to Sandy Reyes, the veteran merengue singer, was the record that gave him his longest run: it held the top of the típico chart for thirty-five weeks and sat at two and three on the general merengue list at the same time.

He has kept up that line of work. With Rafaelito Román he recorded a tribute to Tatico Henríquez, the accordionist on whose playing the modern form of the genre is built, and he cut a novelty number with the comedians Raymond Pozo and Miguel Céspedes. In 2017 he announced a merengue with José Peña Suazo y La Banda Gorda and a salsa with the salsa singer Yiyo Sarante.

Among the merengueros

He belongs to the generation of típico players who came up after the genre had won its argument with respectable opinion, and he moves easily among the orchestra merengueros: Bonny Cepeda, Miriam Cruz and Yovanny Polanco have appeared as guests at his concerts.