The Festival de Sainagua is like the Woodstock of Palo Music.

Sanagua is in San Cristobal, and people from all the regions of Dominican Republic,

goes there to perform with their Pallo group.

When I saw the first time in the dancing and everything together, I was like super impressed.

Like, oh my God, how I don't know about this?

So that's why I started experimenting with the Dominican roots music.

And that's why I say this is kind of the real Dominican music.

From Futuro Media, it's Latino USA.

I'm Maria Inojosa.

Around the globe, people often think of Dominican music as being either merengue or

Batchata.

But there's another side of Dominican music that doesn't get as much airtime.

It's known as Afro-Dominican roots music.

The group Yasser Tejeda and Palo Trey are hoping to change that.

They combine local traditional folkloric sounds like Palo and Sarandunga with jazz and rock

to create fusions that celebrate the island's heritage.

They're adding a new spin to local sounds and hoping to reimagine what it means to be Dominican, one beat at a time.

One of the singles from their latest album is titled Amor Arrayano, and it's about a cross-border love story between a Haitian man and a Dominican woman.

In this edition of How I Made It, the band leader and guitarist

Giacert de Jada tells us about his personal journey of learning about his country's

diverse musical landscape and about his band's collaboration with Grammy-winning artist

Vicente Garcia for the song, Amor Arrayano.

...