Fans and compatriots shared their memories of the Music icon of the Dominican Republic Rubby Pérez on Thursday, who was one of the dozens of people killed this week after Roof at Jet Set Club In Santo Domingo collapsed. He was 69 years old.
Know for songs such as “Volveré”, “El Africano” and “You go to Volar”, Pérez devoted his long career to Merengue, the musical style signature of the Dominican Republic. It earned him the title, “the highest voice in Merengue”, although it was his second career choice.
Born March 8, 1956 in Haina, Pérez aspired to be a baseball player, but these dreams stopped when his right leg was injured in a car accident.
Pérez finally found comfort in the guitar and started his musical career in the 1970s. He made his debut as part of Los Pitagoras del Ritmo.
In 1989, Pérez joined the Wilfrido Vargas orchestra, which gave him the opportunity to launch his solo career in 1987. In 2022, Pérez released his latest album, “Hecho Esta”.
His albums have become gold and platinum in Venezuela and earned him the honors of the Orchestra and Merengue of the year at the Soberano Awards, the Dominican Music Awards.
Following news according to which Pérez was one of the victims of collapse, Vargas published a statement saying that you can never really say goodbye to an artist like Pérez whose “heritage transcends time and space”.
“His powerful and full of life voice will continue to resonate in all the corners of our Dominican Republic and beyond,” said Vargas. “Rubby was not only a singer; It was a symbol of courage, passion and artistic excellence. ”
A few days before the collapse, he was in New York. To what would be his last performance in the United States, he told the fans that he had come out of going to Santo Domingo.
An audience The funerals took place for Pérez Thursday at the Santo Domingo’s National Theater.
“He was a beloved man,” said Martitza Martinez, 75, in Spanish from Pérez, adding that she had attended three of his parties in the Dominican Republic, in part because his cousin was his car mechanic. “Pick up live, he was excellent.”
Martinez joined other people in mourning Thursday outside the United Palace Theater where Pérez had once played Washington Heights, the Dominican diaspora center in New York. In front of the palace, a poster of Pérez was glued to a tree, framed between the Dominican flags above and the candles below which wore the images of Jesus and the Virgin Mary.
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The journalist of Associated Press Cedar Attanasio contributed.
