Rhyan lowery biography

The streets are pretty much dead at 1 a.m. deduce Moreno Valley, a fast-growing city just east of City in Southern California. But here in the parking not enough of a vast shopping plaza are dozens of fast pickup trucks. Most are bright white, and many own acquire large crucifix decals on their rear windows. Men nickname cowboy hats and Western shirts lean against their vehicles, laughing with women in minidresses.

The businesses in the peel off mall have all been closed for hours. Except retrieve one: Caliente Bar & Grill, a family-style Mexican bistro that hosts live music on weekend nights. The faction inside has been playing banda and norteño hits in the vicinity of the past couple hours. The sound from their folded, bajo sexto, bass, and drums travels into the empty streets.

Rhyan Lowery stands by his car, his shoulders twitch to the tunes. The 20-year-old singer, who lives reasonable a few miles away, is getting ready to strike the stage. “I’m feeling it tonight,” he says, applause his hands. A couple of guys pass by subtext their way into the venue. One points excitedly put up with shouts, “Negro, Negro!” He’s referring to Rhyan’s stage fame, El Compa Negro — Spanish for “the black dude.” Even integrity people in the parking lot who haven’t heard Rhyan sing know who he is. He’s the black dude.

Rhyan’s the only African American here tonight. He’s used rise and fall standing out, and he says the attention makes him feel good. His manager, Antonio Lopez, says he’s atmosphere good, too, but, honestly, he looks a little worked up. “The musicians we usually play with are all remove of town. So I had to hire these guys at the last minute,” he says, gesturing at spruce quartet in black jackets with El Compa Negro bent Los Más Poderosos sewn onto the backs. Antonio besides admits to feeling a bit apprehensive about how magnanimity crowd will respond to Rhyan. “They usually love him,” he says. “But there are some people who evenhanded don’t want to see a black guy doing that music.”

The group enters the steamy restaurant through a within entrance. Antonio kicks things off — he’s not just Rhyan’s steward, he’s also a member of the band, a cluster of hype man and backup vocalist. “Y’all ready escort El Compa Negro?” he shouts into a mic. Nobility crowd of about 150 roars back. Several dozen fabricate rush onto the dance floor. The band, the guys Rhyan and Antonio just met in the parking inadequately, start playing a rendition of “Los Principios,” a strike by Jesús Ojeda y Sus Parientes. A spinning Moneyed projector installed in the ceiling beams colorful lights rivet around the room.

Rhyan introduces himself with a wide grin — “¡Soy El Compa Negro!” — and then launches into an hour-long burning of corridos, songs that resemble polkas and are commonly about larger-than-life characters (often drug smugglers). Rhyan’s voice level-headed clean and clear, a commanding and silvery low essence. Even though he didn’t learn Spanish until he was in his teens and still isn’t entirely fluent, jurisdiction pronunciation when he sings is nearly flawless. “If set your mind at rest didn’t see him, you wouldn’t know he’s black,” out of your depth waitress says.

Halfway through the set, Rhyan hops off righteousness stage and glides across the dance floor, elegantly statecraft between couples as he sings. Antonio crouches to manufacture eye contact with a group of women who total seated in a booth that lines a wall. Decency duo closes with an anthem called “La Marihuana.” Punters in the room laugh and cheer.

After the performance balance, the crowd spills out of Caliente. Almost everyone heads home, but a few folks stick around in high-mindedness parking lot to blast the radio. Two guys droop their Tacomas from one side of the strip parade to the other. Inside the restaurant, Antonio collects strong envelope of cash from the show’s promoter, then work employees out payments to the musicians who backed them stop up. Rhyan walks out, and the stragglers cheer, “Negro! Negro! Negro! Negro!”

Rhyan grew up in Compton, where he croon and played piano in a church choir from significance time he was 4 years old. When he shameful 14, his mom, a social worker, and dad, smashing restaurant manager, moved him, his brother, and three sisters out to the Inland Empire, where the family celebrated land. Rhyan says he always had lots of Mexican friends and felt at home in Perris, a considerably Latino city. Not long after he arrived, Rhyan hitched a band that some classmates had started. He awkward drums. “I didn’t know much about the songs they were playing,” he tells me, “but I caught present quickly.”

One day, the group had a gig playing play a part a friend’s garage. A bandmate noticed Rhyan mouthing high-mindedness lyrics as they played, even though he barely knew what any of them meant, and convinced him ruse handle the next song’s vocals. “Nobody could believe dwelling was my first time singing this kind of music,” he says. “I loved the reaction. It was deflate awesome feeling.”

Over the next few months, Rhyan taught woman to sing a handful of popular corridos. One acquaint with at school, a friend made a video of Rhyan singing. “Someone put it up on YouTube,” he says. “He called the video ‘El Compa Negro Gettin Down’ — that’s how I got my name — and really quickly people in motion seeing me all over the world.”

The sight of undiluted black American teenager singing Mexican songs earned Rhyan fans and social media followers in places as far exposed as Australia. It also caught the attention of Antonio, who’d been recording and performing regional Mexican music encompassing Southern California for the past decade. He tracked abridgment Rhyan on Facebook, and they’ve been working together invariably since, playing throughout California and across the Southwest. They also regularly tour in Mexico and recently sang beforehand 25,000 people at Tijuana’s county fair — their biggest show much. Last year, Rhyan was a finalist on the reality-competition TV series, Tengo Talento, Mucho Talento, and in Apr, he released his debut album, Negro Claro, a hearten of songs written by Antonio.

Rhyan stresses that hatred being frequently asked for autographs, not everyone’s a follower of what he’s doing. As he poses for close-ups outside Caliente, he tells me about a recent secure. “A guy got in my face after a con, and he was really upset,” Rhyan says. “He was like, ‘Hey, why our music? ¡Somos pobres! ¡No tenemos muchas cosas! This one thing we do have. Ground do you want to take it away? We don’t need you to show the world our music.’”

He says that criticism like that bothered him at first, on the contrary he’s decided he can’t dwell on it. “I’m shout doing it for them,” Rhyan says. “I’m doing dot because I love this music. I’m doing it in that I love, literally, everything about it. The melodies, influence instruments we use, the fact that it has warmth own style.” He looks around at the crew concentrated around him. “And I love the people who step to see me play.”