Raulín Rodríguez was born in 1970 in Las Matas de Santa Cruz, Monte Cristi, in the northwest of the Dominican Republic. He grew up on the bachata of Luis Vargas and Anthony Santos, and played guitar in Santos's band before going solo in 1993 with the album Una Mujer Como Tú, which carried the title track and "Que Dolor".
Fans call him "El Cacique". He was one of the first bachata singers to break out internationally in the 1990s, and his lyrics did a lot of the work: where older bachata leaned on double meanings, his songs were openly romantic, which got the genre onto regular radio. "Nereyda", "Soledad" and "Esta Noche" are among his biggest hits. He won the Cassandra Award for Bachata Artist of the Year in 2006, and Soberano Awards for Bachata of the Year and Bachata Artist of the Year in 2014 and 2016.