Elvis Crespo was named after Elvis Presley, born in New York City in 1971 and raised in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico. He spent the mid-1990s singing with Grupo Manía, where he wrote "Linda Eh" for them, and left in 1997 to make his own record.
That record was Suavemente, and its title track held number one on Billboard's Hot Latin Tracks for six weeks in 1998, only the second merengue song ever to top that chart. "Tu Sonrisa" went to number one after it, and the album has sold over four million copies. The follow-up, Píntame, won the first Grammy for Best Merengue Performance in 2000, and Saboréalo took the Latin Grammy for Best Merengue Album in 2005. He kept the pace up on Wow Flash! and Regresó el Jefe, and in 2016 his voice carried Deorro's merengue-house track "Bailar" to the top of the US Tropical chart.