Menudo

Menudo was formed in 1977 by producer Edgardo Díaz, starting with five boys between nine and thirteen years old, including Díaz's own cousins, the Meléndez brothers. The structural quirk that defined the group was built into its concept from the start: members were let go once they reached roughly fifteen to seventeen years old, when their voices changed with puberty, and the group cycled through more than fifty different members over its history as a result.

The 1981 album Quiero Ser, "I Want to Be," launched the group to genuine international stardom across Latin America. By 1984, Menudo had sold more than eight million records worldwide and had its own private jet, a used Lockheed JetStar that President Nixon and the shah of Iran had flown, a detail that captures how big the group's commercial machine had become. Ricky Martin joined that same year, at twelve years old, replacing the last original member, Ricky Meléndez, and Draco Rosa, performing then as Robby Rosa, also joined the lineup in 1984.

The group's reach extended well beyond music. Menudo toured the world, appeared on Sesame Street, and filmed English-language commercials for major American brands, including Pepsi and McDonald's, during its 1980s peak, becoming a genuinely mainstream crossover act rather than a regional phenomenon. That popularity began to fade toward the 1990s amid allegations of drug use; two members were arrested with marijuana at Miami International Airport in 1990, and Menudo's name and rights were finally sold in 1997, closing the group's original era.

The nostalgic version of Menudo's story is not the whole story. A 2022 documentary, Menudo: Forever Young, included allegations from former members describing harassment, exploitative working conditions, and abuse during the band's original run. Those allegations emerged decades after the fact, but they are a real and serious part of the group's history, and any honest account of Menudo has to sit alongside its pop-culture success rather than replace it.

Sources: Menudo (grupo). See Sources. Freeze 2026-08-22.