After recording over a hundred songs for RCA Victor over the course of twelve years, Rodríguez moved to New York in 1952, where he remained active, releasing several albums.

Ignacio Arsenio Travieso Scull was born on August 31, 1911, in Güira de Macurijes in Bolondrón (Pedro Betancourt), Matanzas Province.

He was the third of fifteen children, fourteen boys and one girl, to Bonifacio Travieso, a farmer and veteran of the Cuban War of Independence, and Dorotea Rodríguez Scull.

[5] By the time Arsenio was four, in 1915, his family moved to the town of Güines, where his three younger siblings (Estela, Israel "Kike" and Raúl) were born.

[5] The young brothers began playing the tumbadora at rumba performances in Matanzas and Güines, and became also immersed in the traditions of Palo Monte and its secular counterpart, yuka.

[6] Furthermore, their neighbour in the neighbourhood of Leguina, Güines, was a Santería practitioner who hosted celebrations for Changó, exposing Arsenio and Kike to West African drumming and chanting.

[6] Following the destruction of their home by a Category 4 hurricane in 1926, Arsenio and his family moved from Güines to Havana, where he started playing in local groups around Marianao (his older brother Julio had already been living and working there).

[8] His father died in 1933 and sometime in the early 1930s, Arsenio changed his stage name from Travieso (which means "mischievous" or "naughty") to his mother's maiden name, Rodríguez, a fairly common Spanish surname.

[5] By 1938, Rodríguez was the de facto musical director of the Septeto Bellamar and his name had become familiar to important figures such as Antonio Arcaño and Miguelito Valdés.

[9] His acquaintance with the latter made it possible for one of his songs, "Bruca maniguá", to be recorded by the famous Orquesta Casino de la Playa in June 1937.

[11] In 1940, on the wave of his success with Casino de la Playa, Rodríguez formed his own conjunto, which featured three singers (playing claves, maracas and guitar), two trumpets, tres, piano, bass, tumbadora and bongo.

There is much speculation about his financial status during his last years, but Mario Bauzá denied that he died in poverty, arguing that Rodríguez had a modest income from royalties.

[15] Rodríguez's chief innovation, his interpretation of the son montuno, established the basic template for Cuban popular dance music and salsa that continues to this day.

The conjunto's collective and consistent accentuation of these two important offbeats gave the son montuno texture its unique groove and, hence, played a significant part in the dancer's feeling the music and dancing to it, as Bebo Valdés noted "in contratiempo" ['offbeat timing']Moore points out that Rodríguez's conjunto introduced the two-celled bass tumbaos, that moved beyond the simpler, single-cell tresillo structure.

"[20] Moore states: "This idea of a bass tumbao with a melodic identity unique to a specific arrangement was critical not only to timba, but also to Motown, rock, funk, and other important genres.

It consists of everyone in the band playing the same series of punches, creating extreme rhythmic tension with a combination of cross-rhythms and deceptive harmonies.

[26] Rodríguez introduced the idea of layered guajeos (typical Cuban ostinato melodies)—an interlocking structure consisting of multiple contrapuntal parts.

By adopting polyrhythmic elements from the son, the horns took on a vamp-like role similar to the piano montuno and tres (or string) guajeoThe denser rhythmic weave of Rodríguez's music required the addition of more instruments.

Rodríguez took the pivotal step of replacing the guitar with the piano, which greatly expanded the contrapuntal and harmonic possibilities of Cuban popular music.

"Como traigo la yuca", popularly called "Dile a Catalina", recorded in 1941 and Arsenio's first big hit, may be his most famous composition.

While Rodríguez was not from Oriente province (where nengón and changüí are played), he had a thorough knowledge of many folkloric styles and his creative partner, the pianist/composer Luis "Lilí" Martínez Griñán, in fact came from that part of the island.

This virulently addictive little sequence would remain dormant for fifteen years until becoming a pop juggernaut in songs such as "Hey Jude" and "Sympathy for the Devil".

A prevalent theory is that the López brothers were influenced by Rodríguez's use of layered guajeos (called diablo), and introduced the concept into the charanga's string section with their historical composition.

Arsenio uses proverbs associated with Palo Monte and other traditional passages with Congo lexical passages... Arsenio's afrocubanos demonstrate not only the extent of his knowledge of Palo Monte spirituality but also his critique of the discourse on African inferiority and atavismas (1) manifested in racist representational tropes in Cuban popular culture and (2) implied in the ideology of mestizaje (read: racial and cultural "progress").

As he countered in his afrocubanos, these traditions of his youth, through representing a "primitive" era for most of the white Cuban elite as well as black intellectuals, continued to be a vital and powerful aspect of his music and lifeOn Palo Congo by Sabú Martínez (1957) Rodríguez sings and plays a traditional palo song and rhythm, a Lucumí song for Eleggua, and a rumba and a conga de comparsa accompanied by tres.

[42] Rodríguez's 1963 landmark album Quindembo features an abakuá tune, a columbia, and several band adaptations of traditional palo songs, accompanied by the bona fide rhythms.

Also released in the 1960s, the album Primitivo, featuring Monguito el Único and Baby González alternating on lead vocals, is an evocation of the music played in the solares.

Arsenio Rodríguez is mentioned in a national television production called La época,[49] about the Palladium era in New York, and Afro-Cuban music.

[53] Belatedly, the borough of the Bronx officially had the intersection of Intervale Ave. and Dawson St. in the area known as Longwood renamed "Arsenio Rodríguez Way" in a dedication and unveiling ceremony on Thursday, June 6, 2013.

"[54] The street designation serves as the crowning jewel after an arduous series of collaborative efforts and events produced last year that rendered tribute to the band leader and resident performer of the Longwood community.