Detroit is better known as the “motor city”, but unfortunately, there’s very little left of what it once made this city famous and lately, it attracts more attention because of the high unemployment and high crime, but out of this chaos a transplant from Guadalajara, Ricardo Naipes, is trying to make his way to the top of the music scene.
Ricardo Naipes had to leave his native Guadalajara at a young age because of political and economic issues his family was suffering. Without speaking a word of English, Ricardo struggled with school at the beginning but found comfort in music.
Music first came into Ricardo’s life while a child in Guadalajara where his grandfather had a piano and he always wanted to play it. Later on his father got Ricardo his own piano and he began to play and teach himself.
Once in Detroit, his father got him a Casio keyboard and Ricardo was able to enter a music program where he learned the basics as he continued to learn through books friends and listening.
At the age of 14, like so many immigrants, Ricardo began to work at a restaurant, and at that restaurant he was invited to play with the house band, a musical group that played “ranchero” songs as well as other regional Mexican music, although Ricardo continued to learn about music in the group, his musical taste laid in pop and rock music.
While in the group, Ricardo Naipes began to write his own songs, but since they were more on the pop-rock style, the band would not entertain the idea of playing his songs, so Ricardo decided strike out on his own and with a friend created a musical project called VO3, meaning “Verano 2003” (summer of 2003).
Unfortunately VO3 did not last long and Ricardo decided to go solo and began playing acoustic shows all over Detroit and he was impressive enough that he was picked up by a management agency and with the release of his single “Creo” he performed on national TV on the Univision morning show, “Tu Desayuno Alegre”.
Unfortunately, his management agency lost interest on him and did not support him, and Ricardo came close to giving up on music, until last year, when he got in touch with an L.A. based agency, The Moxie Promo, and has now released a new single and video called “Al Norte”, which talks about the struggles of undocumented immigrants and is now working on a new full length album.
Ricardo recently played the House of Blues on the Sunset Strip and for the first time in 18 years, Ricardo has returned to Guadalajara where he will be playing several shows and will be returning home to put the finishing touches on his first album.
To learn more about Ricardo Naipes, you can find him on Facebook and at ricardonaipes.net
