NG2

These two young Puerto Ricans have taken a path that's increasingly less common for their peers: they've chosen to play salsa. You could say the music is in their blood: Gerardo Rivas's father Jerry was a vocalist with the nearly deified Puerto Rican salsa supergroup El Gran Combo, which makes him, in some small way, salsa royalty. Norberto Velez grew up with a music teacher for a father and sang in various salsa coros when he was just a teenager. The duo met in Victor Manuelle's orchestra -- Velez was part of the coro, where he met Rivas, who had joined as a singer and then graduated to percussion. In 2004 the two decided to strike out on their own (with Manuelle's blessing), and they released two well-received albums, 2004's Comienzos and 2006's Al Fin. In 2008, they released Con Todas Las De Ganar.