Today, Manuelle is recognized as one of the finest tropical artists, a singer-songwriter with a piercing tenor who can croon as well as he can improvise, carrying on the legacy of the great soneros of his native Puerto Rico.

In the past two years, after parting ways with longtime label Sony and launching his own music company, Kiyavi, Manuelle has become an impresario who has made major-label achievements with a successful independent business model. Manuelle spoke to Billboard about the evolution of tropical music and his career.

Billboard: Your label, Kiyavi, is named after your three children. Was it merely a sentimental move?

Victor Manuelle: Yes, but at the same time, it allows me to be more involved. The company becomes something more emotional for the artist. The name of my label, from the onset, has meaning for me. Even though it seems like something fancy or superfluous, I did it with that intent. This feeds my children. And every day when I wake up and say "Kiyavi," that's what I'm working for.

Billboard: Was that the primary motivation for creating your label?

Manuelle: That, and I felt I had arrived at a point where I could do other things and not simply be an artist. I was practically a label by then. I was the musical producer of my albums, I had input in the videos, in the album artwork, in much of the process.

Billboard: Talk about your childhood. Were there musicians in the family?

Manuelle: My father wasn't a musician but he was a very musical man, and at home he'd play whatever album was hot in the market. He was a big fan of tropical music. That was back when Fania was at its height. But as for me having an inkling of being musical, it started in the school talent shows. I liked to participate. I liked to sing.

It was the kind of town where there wasn't a conservatory or a music school. It was the kind of town where, if you wanted to do music, you had to do it yourself.

Billboard: You recorded more than 10 albums in more than 10 years with Sony. When you look back, do you feel nostalgic for the time you lived through, when artists were developed rather than dropped after two albums?

Manuelle: Yes, it saddens me, but it saddens me more that I didn't know then what I know now about the industry. I think, "Wow, if at this point in time, with the industry in the state it is, I have my own label and I can see profits, can you imagine when you actually sold 1 million albums?" At the time, you would get an advance and you thought it was huge. But it's an evolution and I can't complain; I lived one of the best moments in the record industry, when salsa was at its height. And when the industry began to change, I didn't complain about my company; I just thought I had to change with the industry. I can't ask of a company things that don't make business sense for them.

Billboard: When did you begin writing your own songs?

Manuelle: Since my second album. The person who really opened my eyes was (salsa star) Gilberto (Santa Rosa), who said, "These songs are as good as anyone's." And at one point he told me if I wasn't going to record them, he would. That's when I started to gain confidence as a writer and started giving songs to other artists like Milly Quezada, Ismael Miranda and Gilberto.

But I've always thought that the mix of writers brings more variety to an album. Even in the past three, four years, when I've been writing more than ever, you'll maybe find six of my songs on an album.

Billboard: What is your writing process? Do you write lyrics or music first?

Manuelle: Because I don't play an instrument, a melody can come to me when I'm in the middle of a flight (he begins singing) and I add the lyrics. And if they don't suit the music, I erase everything and start from scratch. Sometimes, I get my best ideas from movies; I'm motivated by things I see. And I write most of my songs on airplanes.

Or, when I'm in Puerto Rico, driving from San Juan to Isabela, a melody will come into my head, and if I don't have my tape recorder on hand, I'll have to sing it to myself the whole way so I don't forget it. And sometimes the melody just vanishes. It's the worse thing.

Now, the BlackBerry has saved me. Listen, for example, I have a melody recorded in here. (He takes out his BlackBerry and plays back his humming voice.) The problem is, if I'm on a plane, I don't want the person next to me to feel uncomfortable so I have to just kind of mumble into my BlackBerry.

Billboard: You also sing pop. Do you see yourself as a pop or tropical artist?

Manuelle: My name is Victor Manuelle and, in the pages of Latin music history, I'm a salsero. I took advantage of my status as a salsero to sing pop. Tropical music is very hard. It's not something you learn to do. You have it inside you or you don't. Tropical music is like a pair of jeans; it never goes out of style. But today's salsero has to represent a new generation.

Billboard: Many people think tropical music is in a downward slide.

Manuelle: People always want to blame the current generation. But tropical music from the 1960s has nothing to do with the music from the 1990s. It has to change. It's a different listener. Music by Tito Puente and Machito was big-band music, which was spectacular, but it sounds nothing like Hector Lavoe, nor does Hector Lavoe sound anything like Luis Enrique or Jerry Rivera. We need to take into account that today's listener is more (a fan of) top 40.

The question is, how do you carry the message of tropical music without losing the essence of the music? You have to do something new so you can hook the younger listener. It's what happened to reggaeton. It became the top-selling genre and they realized they had to fuse it with bachata or merengue because the sound had become repetitive.

We're in the middle of that evolution. With bands like Aventura, we're reinventing the sound of tropical music. And it's not about sacrificing the essence of the music. If that were the case, Hector Lavoe and Willie Colon wouldn't have done what they did, sacrificing the essence of a big band. Because it used to be 25 musicians onstage, and they switched that for two trombones and for a sound that was initially very criticized.

Billboard: Since you launched Kiyavi, each of your albums has been specific in its intent. Talk about your most recent one, "Yo Mismo."

Manuelle: It's a continuation. My first solo album was titled "Soy" (I Am), and this is a follow-up of that line, "Yo Mismo" (Myself). So, my three albums (since creating Kiyavi) have been "Soy," "Muy Personal," (Very Personal), "Yo Mismo." It sounds egocentric, but I've gotten so involved in the business -- in the businessman, in the artist, in the A&R process -- that I feel each one of my albums has more of Victor Manuelle in them.