Por Fuera y Por Dentro is the first album released by Colombian singer/composer Carlos Vives.

Released on June 6, 1986, Vives was better known as a television star of soap operas at the time of its release. The album contains romantic ballads laden with synthesizers, pre-dating Vives's vallenato breakthrough. As was the case with early Vives albums, this wasn't a commercial success, and is his least known recording. Largely overlooked by the public and Vives himself, the album is a collector's item for die-hard fans.

Carlos Vives, one of Latin America's biggest artists and revolutionizer of modern vallenato, started as a struggling young star in Latin television. With soap operas, or telenovelas, being a springboard for Latin Americans seeking fame, Vives was no exception. In his home country of Colombia, the Santa Marta-born, and Bogotá raised actor cut his teeth in a number of shows including "Pequeños Gigantes" (Little Giants - 1983) and "Tuyo es Mi Corazón (Yours is My Heart - 1985) before finding notoriety in the title role of "Gallito Ramírez (Ramírez the Rooster - 1986). That same year, he released his first album Por Fuera y Por Dentro (From Outside and From Within), marking Vives’s first true passion, music.

Roberto Cantoral García (7 June 1935 – 7 August 2010) was a Mexican composer, singer and songwriter. He was known for composing a string of hit Mexican songs, including El Triste, Al Final, La Barca and El Reloj. The Sociedad de Autores y Compositores de México (English: Society of Authors and Composers of Mexico) estimated that La Barca and El Reloj have been recorded over 1,000 times by other artists like Plácido Domingo, Gualberto Castro, José José, Luis Miguel, Joan Báez and Linda Ronstadt. In 2009, he won the Latin Grammy Trustee Award.Iconos, which was released by Marc Anthony in 2010, featured "El Triste".

Roberto Cantoral Garcia was born on 7 June 1935 in Ciudad Madero, Tamaulipas. From an early age, he showed an ability for music and its composition. Cantoral moved to Mexico City to attend college but dropped out to become a band leader.

In 1950, Cantoral formed the Hermanos Cantoral (English: Cantoral Brothers) with Antonio Cantoral. The duo recorded "El preso número 9" (English: Prisoner Number 9) and "El crucifijo de piedra" (English: The Crucifix of Stone). The duo ended in 1954 with Antonio's death and Roberto formed Los Tres Caballeros (English: The Three Knights) with Chamin Correa and Leonel Gálvez who performed during Mexico's era of romantic music and traveled to Japan, Argentina and the United States.

Milagros Quezada Borbón, known simply as Milly Quezada, is a Latin Grammy-winning Dominican Merengue music singer. She is a singer in Latin America; especially in those Latin American countries bordered by the Caribbean Sea, and in the eastern seaboard region of the United States. She is also known as Merengue Queen.

Milly Quezada was born in Santo Domingo, the daughter of two Cibao natives and sister of four musician brothers. Growing up in such a musical family, Quezada became interested in music as a toddler—she would sing along with her brothers for family, friends and small gatherings near her home.

She expressed an interest in developing her singing talents as a young girl, and, partly for this reason the Quezada family moved to New York City when she was still a child.

Milly spent her pre-teen and teen years in New York, a city that is well known as a school for Merengue and Salsa singers from its Latino barrios, e.g. Spanish Harlem. In New York, Quezada developed an in-depth knowledge of her favorite musical genre, the fastest of the Latin American popular dance music styles, sung in Spanish and native to the Dominican Republic (see also Son Cubano, Rumba, Salsa, Cha-Cha-Cha, and Punta for comparison, as well as Kompa, the style sung in kreyòl in neighboring Haiti). Merengue has been comically referred to as "the Latino weight-loss program" since it is an infectious rhythm, and the songs tend to inspire adherents to enthusiastic dancing. After graduating from high school in New York, she attended City College of New York, graduating with a university degree in communications.

Carlos Alberto Vives Restrepo (born August 7, 1961 in Santa Marta, Magdalena) is a Grammy Award and three-time Latin Grammy Award winning-Colombian singer, composer and actor.

Carlos Vives was born on August 7, 1961. in Santa Marta, Magdalena, Colombia, where he spent his first 12 years of life. At that age, he and his family moved to Bogotá in search of a better life. They lived with Diego Martinez and his family. In Bogota, he acquired a taste for rock, getting involved in the local music scene, and started playing in bars and cafés around the city.

In 1982, Vives began acting in in a number of shows and telenovelas including "Pequeños Gigantes" (Little Giants - 1983) and "Tuyo es Mi Corazón" (Yours is My Heart - 1985). He finally found notoriety in 1986 by playing the title role of Gallito Ramírez (which told the story of a Colombian Caribbean coast boxer who falls in love with an uptight girl, who was portrayed by his first wife, Margarita Rosa de Francisco). (1986). That same year, he released his first album, Por Fuera y Por Dentro. The album, primarily made of ballads, failed to gain any success. In 1987, he released his second ballad album, No Podrás Escapar de Mí. Though the title track reached #30 on the Billboard Hot Latin Tracks, the album did not sell well. His next album, Al Centro de la Ciudad, would become his last album to feature synthesizer-romantic ballads. Some of the songs got some attention being featured in telenovelas, but the album, just as its predecessors, failed to gain success.