Marco Antonio Muñiz could not finish a sentence without stumbling over his words. He grew up in a small apartment in East Harlem, New York, with his Puerto Rican parents—Felipe, a guitarist, and Guillermina, a homemaker—and his 7 siblings, in a neighborhood where there was never enough money and his stutter isolated him from his own words.
Then he discovered something that would change everything: when he sang, the stutter vanished. The kitchen table in his home was his first stage.
He also grew up feeling self-conscious about his extreme thinness and physical appearance, admitting in later interviews that he never considered himself a “heartthrob” and that his father advised him to focus on developing his personality and voice rather than his looks.
Then came backing vocals for Menudo and The Latin Rascals, nights singing in New York clubs, and a meeting with producer Little Louie Vega that in 1992 led him to open a show for none other than Tito Puente.
Today he is recognized as the best-selling salsa artist in history. The boy who could not speak without stumbling over his words ended up turning his voice into the instrument that saved him.