Luis Cordero is originally from the Dominican Republic. He was born in the rural town of Tenares but later moved to the capital city where he formed his first musical group at the age of 17. Although Luis is the first professional musician to have emerged from his family and is entirely self-taught, he was inspired by his father's love of music:


"Since I was very young, I have always loved music. Even since I was four years old. I would always hear my father singing and those songs stuck in my head. I would learn them and sing them from the time I was very young. Later, when I began to grow up, I bought a guitar and I learned to play on my own. I would go to where the great musicians were playing. I didn't go to dance. I only went to watch how they played and to learn what they did, to ask them questions. And little by little, I learned".


In 1978 Luis moved to New York and he now resides in Freeport. Since 1987 he has been recording both sacred and secular music together with his daughter Rosa and is a popular performer at local nightclubs. He plays a wide variety of music including Colombian cumbia and vallenato, Cuban bolero and pan-Latino salsa to satisfy his diverse audience. Luis specializes in the Dominican Republic's most popular exports: energetic, danceable merengue and romantic bachata. Luis's own compositions can be romantic, humorous or topical. Some are inspired by the immigrant experience:


This song I wrote, "Quisqueya," is a song that has a message for the people who come from the Dominican Republic, who come here thinking of their homeland, who hope one day to return to Santo Domingo. On the contrary, I think that hardly anyone returns from here to Santo Domingo because one arrives with the thought of returning, but little by little one becomes accustomed to the United States.