Lapiz Conciente ("Conscious Pen") is a Dominican rapper who refers to himself as "El Papa del Rap Dominicano" ("the pop of Dominican rap"). 　　Born as Avelino Junior Figueroa Rodriguez in 1983 in the Los Mina neighborhood of Santo Domingo, Lápiz Conciente was interested in music from an early age; he was prevented from pursuing much in the way of hip-hop, because it was marginalized in the Dominican Republic at the time, but he pursued it in an underground fashion, posting homemade videos of rap confrontations with competitors.