Rodríguez was a percussionist who started playing bongos at the age of five in his father's quartet El Conjunto Gondolero.

[10] While singing and playing the congas in a Bronx Club Los Panchos, he was spotted by the bandleader Johnny Pacheco.

[4] Just a year later in 1964, Pacheco and his lawyer Jerry Masucci founded The Fania All-Stars, a combination of the best Latin singers and musicians at that time.

Effected by the discrimination he faced during his career, "Rodriguez recorded songs of freedom throughout salsa’s biggest decade, including “La Abolición”(“The Abolition”) in 1976 [written by Tite Curet Alonzo], invoking the systemic conditions of Black oppression in the aftermath of emancipation in the Caribbean and Latin America.

By 2000, he was hired by Tito Puente to provide lead vocals for a tribute to the late bolero singer Benny Moré.