Alexandra Cabrera (Monchy y Alexandra)

Alexandra Cabrera, the female half of the extremely popular duo Monchy y Alexandra, comes from a very different mold than did her predecessors in the genre. Born in the capital, Santo Domingo, in 1978, Cabrera from a young age sang at family activities. With no intention of pursuing a professional career in music, Alexandra instead took advantage of means that had certainly not been available to the likes of Aridia Ventura o Mélida Rodríguez, and attended one of Santo Domingo’s universities. It was when she was in the process of completing her studies that she was invited by producers Victor Reyes and Martires De Leon to form the group “Monchy y Alexandra.

The status of bachata in the context of Dominican society had changed enormously since the days of Radio Guarachita. From the beginning, Monchy y Alexandra had all of the considerable resources and international reach of the J&N record label at their disposal. Their first release, “Hoja en blanco” (1999), a cover of a vallenato that had been immensely successful in Colombia, became one of bachata’s biggest hits ever internationally and for the first time brought bachata to all corners of Latin America.

The majority of Monchy y Alexandra’s repertoire is made up of well-crafted love songs that in some ways are closer to international romantic pop ballad styles than to the bold songs of earlier bachateras like Mélida Rodríguez y Aridia Ventura. In addition, while Alexandra is undeniably the most popular bachatera, her songs are always duos with a male singer and so on the whole depict the various facets of romantic love from a gender neutral vantage.

In 2009, Alexandra and Monchy split to each pursue solo careers. She is married to the lead guitarist and arranger of her group, Edilio 'Nano' Paredes, son of Edilio Paredes, the great Dominican bachata guitarist.