Perez Prado (b. December 11, 1916, Cuba – d. September 14, 1989, Mexico City, Mexico) was a Cuban bandleader and composer. He is commonly referred to as the “King of the Mambo”. In Mambo his orchestra was the most popular, his son, Perez Prado, Jr., continues to direct the Pérez Prado Orchestra in Mexico City to this day. Born as Dámaso Pérez Prado in Cuba, his mother was a school teacher, his father a newspaper man. He studied classical piano in his early childhood, and later played organ and piano in local clubs. For a time, he was pianist and arranger for the Sonora Matancera, Cuba’s best known musical group. He also worked with casino orchestras in Havana for most of the 1940s, and gained a reputation for being an imaginative (his solo playing style predated bebop by at least five years), loud player. He was nicknamed “El Cara de Foca” (“Seal Face”) by his peers at the time. In 1948, he moved to Mexico to form his own band and record for RCA Victor. He quickly specialized in mambos, an upbeat adaptation of the Cuban danzón. Pérez Prado’s mambos stood out among the competition, with their fiery brass riffs and strong sax counterpoints, and most of all, Pérez’s trademark grunts (he actually says “¡Dilo!”, or “Say it!”, in many of the perceived grunts). In 1950, arranger Sonny Burke heard “Que rico mambo” while on vacation in Mexico and recorded it back in the United States as “Mambo Jambo”. The single was a hit and Pérez Prado decided to profit himself from the success …