Máximo Antonio del Rosario Almonte, known as Toño Rosario and called El Cuco, is a Dominican merengue singer. He came out of his own family’s orchestra and built the largest solo merengue career of the nineties on top of it, and he is still touring.

Higüey

He was born in 1955 in Higüey, the seat of La Altagracia province in the east of the country. He and his brothers were making instruments out of bottle caps and plastic containers as children and playing them in the neighbourhood, and what began there became a band.

Los Hermanos Rosario

The group was Los Hermanos Rosario. Pepe, Toño and Rafa Rosario sang; Luis, Tony and Francis made up the rest. Pepe died in March 1983, and Toño and Rafa kept the orchestra in front, taking it through the decade in which it became one of the biggest merengue bands in the country and outside it.

Coliseo Roberto Clemente

He left the family band to form his own orchestra and made his solo debut on 14 April 1990 at the Coliseo Roberto Clemente in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The records came fast after that: Y Más… that same year, Atado a Ti in 1991, Retorno a las Raíces in 1992, Amor Jollao in 1993, Me Olvidé de Vivir in 1994 and Quiero Volver a Empezar in 1995.

Seguiré followed in 1997, Exclusivo in 1998, La Magia del Cuco in 1999 — named for what everyone calls him — and Yo Soy Toño in 2000. He kept releasing through the two thousands with Toño en América, Resistiré and A Tu Gusto.

Kulikitaka

The songs people sing back to him run across all of it: La Gozadera, which he numbered and kept remaking; Kulikitaka; Bárbara; Víbora del Mar; Jenny; La Última Copa; Me Olvidé de Vivir; Alegría; Quiero Volver a Empezar; Desnúdate, Mujer; and Ábreme la Puerta.

He has also recorded across the genre’s borders. Traigo la Bomba, in 1992, was made with the Puerto Rican rapper Vico C at a point when merengue and rap were not yet in the habit of sharing a record, and in 2002 he made the album Juntos with Wilfrido Vargas.

The rooms

The venues are the measure of the solo career. He has filled the United Palace in New York, Altos de Chavón at home, the Plaza de Toros in Madrid and the Estadio Centenario in Cuernavaca, and he has played Madison Square Garden.

He is still working. His own channel lists dates for late 2026 in New Jersey, at the United Palace and in Massachusetts, which puts the touring career past fifty years counting from the family band.