Biography
La India, born Linda Viera Caballero in Río Piedras, Puerto Rico, and raised in the South Bronx, started in freestyle before becoming one of the most decorated voices in salsa. Her 1990 album Breaking Night, produced by Little Louie Vega, carried “Right From the Start” and “Dancing on the Fire,” both club hits with a voice audibly too big for the genre’s usual scale.
She then walked away from English-language dance music. Eddie Palmieri produced Llegó la India in 1992, and her salsa career made her “La Princesa de la Salsa,” with Grammy nominations and landmark recordings alongside the genre’s giants.
Her two freestyle singles on this site capture the before picture: a future salsa legend, briefly, on the freestyle dance floor.