Max Santos, known professionally as Max Agende and also as Mikey El Trueno, was born on 30 January 1982 in the South Bronx, New York, to Dominican parents. A bass guitarist, arranger and rapper, he co-founded the bachata group Aventura and is widely credited with modernizing how bass is played in the genre.

Los Tinellers to Aventura

Santos began playing bass at twelve, after borrowing an instrument at school, and experimented at home with his brother Lenny Santos. In 1995 the two, together with their friends Romeo Santos and Henry Santos, formed Los Tinellers, whose only album went nowhere; the same lineup regrouped as Aventura in 1999. As the group's bassist, rapper and arranger, Santos brought techniques from the rock he had grown up playing, among them slapping, melodic runs and slides, into an instrument bachata had until then used mostly to keep rhythm.

Aventura's records

Santos is featured as a rapper on «Obsesión (English Remix)», from «We Broke the Rules»; on «Don't Waste My Time», from «Love & Hate»; and on «You're Lying», from «God's Project». He also played on Romeo Santos's «Utopía» (2019), recording «Inmortal» with the reunited group, and has since worked as a session bassist for artists including Elvis Martínez, Henry Santos, Toby Love and Thalía, among others.

Max Agende

Since 2007 Santos has worked in parallel as a rapper under the name Max Agende, releasing music in both the underground and mainstream market and co-signing artists including Mozart La Para, El Soprano and Milka la Más Dura. In 2017 he and Lenny produced the rap-inflected bachata single «Loco de Amor». He also runs the label Max Musick, signing underground Latin urban artists.

D'Element, Vena and DNA

With Lenny he first recorded as D'Element, releasing the single «You & Me», before producing a track for the Xtreme singer Steve Styles and inviting him to form a new group, Vena; their first singles, «Señora» and «Ya No» (2012), were immediate hits, followed by «Corazón de Hierro», with Teodoro Reyes and Frank Reyes, «Dile a Él» and «Por Mentiras». Styles left in 2015 over disputes with the group's manager, and Santos stepped away soon after to focus on his rap career; Lenny kept the project going, and in 2018, with the singer J Love, relaunched it as DNA Latin Group. Santos rejoined for the single «Soy Tu Delirio».

Legacy

More than any single hit, it is Santos's playing that changed bachata's bass line from a purely rhythmic part into a melodic one, a shift an entire generation of Caribbean bassists has studied and copied since; he has continued to record and tour with Aventura's reunions while building a separate career, as producer, label owner and rapper, under his own name, most recently with the December 2025 single «La Verdad».