Victor Manuelle has often been compared to Marc Anthony and India, as all three were the leading New York salsa performers of the ‘90s. Manuelle was born Victor Manuel Ruiz in 1970 in New York, NY, but he was raised in Isabela, Puerto Rico. When Gilberto Santa Rosa asked the high school graduate to join him up on stage during his high school graduation, the salsa legend was so impressed that he referred Manuelle to bandleader Don Perignon who hired Manuelle as a backup singer. After facing several obstacles in the background, Manuelle finally signed a solo recording contract with the Sony Tropical division of Sony Discos.

After two somewhat successful albums, his third self-titled piece made him a star. Six singles made the charts and helped jumpstart Manuelle's salsa career and topple Anthony's and India's previous chart-topping salsa albums that had premiered just before. Manuelle continued to create number one singles and albums that broke into the Latin mainstream thanks to his use of tropical beats and salsa flavor. While commercial success was plentiful, originality was not. Manuelle's music was beginning to look stale and started a predictable rotation of romantic themes. Stepping away from his former producers and familiarity, Manuelle worked with his rival (Anthony) and Lugo (El Rey del Bajo) to create his simply salsa album Instinto y Deseo, a throwback to his roots that finally gained back his older fans and newer critics' attentions.

After a few more commercially successful straightforward salsa albums, Manuelle turned his focus on crossover success and created the album Traversia (literally "crossover" in English). Even with a few more poppy ballads than critics and fans were used to, the album still did well in sales and on the charts. He continued to create more successful salsa and crossover albums into the years, co-hosting the 2006 Latin Grammys and earning a Premio Lo Nuestro award for Best Salsa Artist in 2007.