Tego Calderon

Tego Calderón was born in Santurce, Puerto Rico, in 1972. Hegrew up in Río Grande and Carolina, areas of Puerto Rico that maintain some ofthe strongest Afro-Caribbean influences on the island. Throughout his childhoodCalderón was exposed by his parents to the groundbreaking music of salsa legendIsmael Rivera, as well as to Latin jazz. 

Determined to take his place in the music world, Tego explored a diversity ofmusical influences, transforming himself into an accomplished musician as wellas vocalist. He attended the Escuela Libre de Música of Puerto Rico, where heconcentrated on percussion studies, while also mastering composition andlyrics.

In the late-1980s, Tego moved to Miami, where he graduated from Miami BeachSenior High School. It was there that Calderón began to soak up the influencesof American hip-hop. Hearing the California gangster rap troupe N.W.A. provedpivotal. 

Moving back to Puerto Rico, Calderón also found a new appreciation for suchJamaican dance hall performers as Buju Banton, Super Cat, and Ninja Man. Aroundthe same time, the Reggaeton movement began to become a force in Puerto Rico.Calderón began to forge his own multicultural rap style, earning a reputationas a street poet with a fresh musical approach.

He credits fellow Puerto Rican hip-hop pioneer Vico C with inspiring him to rapin Spanish, instead of imitating the English catch phrases of African-Americanhip-hop. Establishing himself as a new voice of the streets, he made a seriesof appearances on best-selling Latin hip-hop compilations. A remix collectionentitled "El Enemy De Los Guasibiri," released in 2004, consistedlargely of tracks which had appeared on those early compilations.

"El Abayarde" released in 2002, broke sales records in thethen-underground Reggaeton genre, selling a remarkable 50,000 on the first dayof its release, and Calderón became an overnight Latin superstar. Just threemonths after making his solo debut, Calderón was greeted with a tumultuousresponse at a sold-out concert at Roberto Clemente Coliseum in San Juan. Thefollowing day, he made history when he became the first rap artist to performat the traditional National Day of Salsa celebration.

When Tego first headlined New York's Madison Square Garden in August 2003, theNew York Times heralded him as "the most forward-looking performer"of the artists on the bill.

In October 2004, when he returned to the stage of the Garden as the star of thebreakthrough "Megatón 2004" event, attendance had swelled from 12,000to a sold-out 20,000, with a large number of non-Spanish-speaking fans in theaudience. 

As Latin rappers have been embraced by the American hip-hop culture, Calderónhas been featured on a variety of mix tapes and has been invited to add histrademark vocal style to collaborations and remixes by the likes of Fat Joe'sTerror Squad (the 1 smash, "Lean Back"), Usher, 50 Cent, CypressHill, and Wyclef Jean, among others.

From his appearances at New York's annual Puerto Rican Day parades in 2004 and2005, to becoming the first Spanish-language artist to be featured on NewYork's Power-105, Calderón has been breaking cultural barriers. In a coverstory on Calderón and Reggaeton, the Village Voice noted that Tego "almostsingle-handedly...steered his country's dominant youth culture out of theisland and Latino neighborhoods, and into the American stream of popconsciousness." Among Calderón's achievements are Latin Grammy andBillboard Award nominations, a Source Award for "International Artist ofthe Year," a Tu Música award, and nominations for La Gente and Lo Nuestroawards.

Tego's music is an experimental nexus of urban Hip Hop roughness with thepoetic Caribbean rhythms transmitted by the early sounds of Salsa music. Notonly is Tego, like many of his Salsa heroes, a formidable storyteller...he alsoincorporates the lyrical percussion and fine rhythmic lines that can be foundin the works of Luis Pales Matos.

Calderon's is by far more than just another Reggaeton performer; he is aconsummate street poet at the Vanguard of the Puerto Rican musical and artisticscene. While others break...Calderon's music is the true essence of a realartist...He creates and repairs...not many current musicians can boast that.

- IMDb Mini Biography By: Jiggiri Records

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