In 1994, master Puerto Rican plena drummer Tito Matos emigrated to New York City and encountered there a vibrant Puerto Rican cultural revival occurring in neighborhoods such as the South Bronx. Matos soon became a part of this movement himself, joining Los Pleneros de la 21, a non-profit performance group founded to celebrate Puerto Rican traditions and to increase appreciation of bomba, plena, and other Afro-Puerto Rican artistic genres. In late 2003, Matos returned to Puerto Rico, where he continues to perform and involve himself in the musical traditions of his homeland. Here he discusses the importance of teaching music to younger generations in local communities.

The bomba and plena heard on this recording are the materia prima (raw material) of today's two most African Puerto Rican musical traditions. When its dynamic leader Tito Matos created the group Viento de Agua ("Wind of Water"), he vowed to keep alive the "streetcorner sound" of the plena, music rooted in the lives of ordinary people. Viento de Agua Unplugged plays the stripped-down, straight-ahead version of his music, foregrounding its essence—the sound of unbridled percussion, underscoring lyrics that proclaim local topics. In these performances by veterans of bomba and plena, Tito proves his claim that "There is no way to create if you don't have the roots."