Villanosam, born Winston Antonio Aponte Acta, is a Dominican rapper and producer working out of San Pedro de Macorís. When Dominicans list the people who built rap in the country, his name comes up with Lápiz Conciente, Mozart La Para, Toxic Crow and Monkey Black, and unlike most of them he has never had a hit that crossed over.

San Pedro

San Pedro de Macorís had a rap scene when the capital had the loudest one, and people who followed the movement remember going down there because the boys were lit up — and lit up with rap, not with dembow. That distinction is the whole story of his career.

He shot the video for San Andreas entirely in the city, which for a Dominican rapper in that period was a statement: the cameras went to San Pedro instead of the artist going to Santo Domingo.

The year rap was going to win

In 2010 he was on El Regreso del Rap, a posse cut whose credit list is a photograph of the moment: Poeta Callejero, Toxic Crow, Lolo en el Micrófono, MelyMel, La Materialista, Milka la Más Dura, Shadow Blow, Shelow Shaq and half a dozen more, all on one record.

The Dominican urban press declared at the time that between that record, Lápiz Conciente’s Yo Soy Papa and Villanosam’s own San Andreas, the dembow era was over and rap had taken the country back.

It had not. Dembow went on to become the largest Dominican musical export in fifty years. But the declaration is worth having on record, because it captures what the rappers believed about their own moment, and because the three records it names really were the strongest rap the country had made in a decade.

The same period gave him El Sapito with Mozart La Para, which got him onto Italian television, and Mafu Tama, which is the one people still shout back at him.

Still making them himself

He produces. Several of his own records are captioned as produced by him, he has posted his own instrumentals, and he describes himself as an artist, songwriter and producer rather than only a rapper.

The recent catalogue is long and unfussy — Cuero Frío Frío, Todo Ya Es Tuyo, Fama, Compota, Veneno, La Tipa, Lo Cuero, Tequila, La Jugosa, Nunca Fue Así, Drama, Paca, Lo Guante — and a remix of Blanca Con Culo brought in La Materialista. There is a salsa choke on there too.

He plays New Jersey and the northeastern Dominican circuit, which is where a Dominican rapper of his generation now works. Nobody has written a profile of him. He has been making the records anyway for a quarter of a century.