‘Sentido Tropical’ New perspective of contemporary music in Puerto Rico.

Rique Colón: ‘New perspective of contemporary music in Puerto
Rico’

As a necessity to reunite a feel of unity and reaffirmation of his roots in the
Caribbean realities, Rique Colón, a Puerto Rican singer-songwriter, has released
his first production titled Sentido Tropical.

According to Rique: “The experience of living out of your country transforms
you automatically as a cultural ambassador, it is at that moment that you
redefine your identity and how much you know about your country.” This is
why Sentido Tropical is also a tribute of his experiences as a traveler, not
only from the countryside to the west coast of his native island, but also his
studies at Boston, and his cultural adventures in north and south America. In South America the singer-songwriter undertook a trekker journey with his
guitar and other instruments he was learning in the path, such as berimbau and
charango. This journey gave him the opportunity to present his compositions
around Argentina, Bolivia, Peru and Brazil, in which he had the opportunity to
participate on a guitar workshop with Marco Pereira and learn the capoeira
angola in Salvador, Bahia.

In Boston, Massachusetts, Rique completed a second bachelor’s degree in
Professional Music at Berklee College of Music after studying classical guitar
from the Interamerican University of Puerto Rico in San Germán. This experience
connected him with important figures in the music scene and challenged his
discipline in performance, arranging and composition.

“To be surrounded with such great musicians from different cultures really
kicked in my creativity into a new level” Rique recalls. Precisely the
chanova emerges from this experiences and relation, not only with his professors
and colleagues but with his friends and families that own an exquisite taste and
love for music.

Through his chanova, Rique Colón expresses his positive vision and a
social-humanistic perspective of the world that surrounds him, all of them
framed in a message of respect for nature, fresh and profound melodies, truly
present in his ten songs of his recent production. “I’ve learned about live
always appealing to nature. This is the music of our senses that enriches our
lives. Nature is music.”

In Sentido Tropical, the 25 year old singer-songwriter reunited musicians from
the excellence of Aldemar Valentin (jazz arranger and bassist), Uziel Colón
(pianist from Egui Castrillo’s band), Fernando Mattina (jazz guitar player),
Néstor Toro (saxophonist and flautist), Luis Javier Santiago (hand
percussionist), Paoli Mejías (hand percussionist) and Nomar Negroni (drummer of
Negroni’s Trio); in which the latter two musicians where nominated to a Latin
Grammy in the Latin Jazz category in 2005.

This production was achieved in San Juan, Puerto Rico under the technical
assistance of Francisco “Kiko” Hurtado de Mendoza and the production of Rique
Colón himself.

The CD is available from CD Baby:
http://cdbaby.com/cd/riquecolon.