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towards popular culture’s acceptance, marking a change in the role of palo, from religious to
entertainment.
Palo’s recent shift into Dominican entertainment can be marked most clearly by “​a Palo
Limpio​,” by Kinito Méndez, released in 2001. Kinito Méndez, a renowned Dominican merengue
musician collaborated with ​paleros​ to create this merengue­palo fusion song. The title, “​a Palo
Limpio​,” literally translates to “to clean palo.” The song begins with bells and singing to mark
the arrival of a deity. After a minute, Kinito enters as well as a guitar, which continue for the
final three minutes. When Kinito performed this song for the pop culture news show, “​De
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Extremo a Extremo​,” in 2011, the song similarly began with a minute of song and rhythms
similar to traditional palo. Afterwards, however, Kinito enters accompanied by horns, keyboard,
a drum kit, and ​tambora​, forcing the palo rhythms into the background of the music for the
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remaining 24 minutes. This performance was advertised as “merengue of palo” or, as Kinito
claims, “​a Palo Limpio​.” The implications made by the title, alongside the overwhelming
presence of merengue, can be dangerous to palo’s presence, however. A “clean palo,” that has
minimal palo rhythms present suggests that palo is in need of ​cleansing​, and that, somehow,
merengue is the ​cleaner ​music, capable of ​cleaning ​it (​read: purging out the
Afro­Dominicanness​). Nevertheless, Kinito’s use of merengue to promote palo, similarly to the
fame that promoted bachata, has shifted palo’s presence within the Dominican populace: creating
a more publicly “acceptable” image of palo.
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​From extreme to extreme.
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​Three minutes into the performance a ​palero​ plays a solo, center­stage, that was inaudible in the broadcast.
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