Ricardo Arjona

More Than a Latin Lover

He defies convention and labels, but Ricardo Arjona defines the soulful exuberance that comes with making a career out of a passion. With a long list of amazing discs behind him, Arjona is well-known for his personal ‘protest’ songs and is sure to fit right into the “Live Music Capitol of the World” when he arrives at The Theatre at the Frank Erwin Center on Saturday, August 12 with his Adentro Tour 2006.

Though Arjona is now known worldwide as one of the premier artists from Latin America, he didn’t always expect to make a living through music. Arjona was born in Antigua, Guatemala with the love of music in his veins. He began playing the guitar at the age of eight and was soon writing his own songs. Music was his first love but he soon decided that other paths also called to him; he was a schoolteacher and a basketball player for the Guatemalan national team for some years before he finally threw himself full-time into his musical career.

When Arjona decided to take on music as a profession, he moved to Mexico City and finally signed a contract with PolyGram. Though this seemed like his big break, Arjona soon realized that the label was trying to make him into the stereotypical ‘Latin lover’ with his first album Dejame Decir Que Te Amo (Let Me Say I Love You). The album failed along with Arjona’s relationship with PolyGram and he spent the next few years teaching and writing songs for other artists.

A move to Buenos Aires revamped his musical career, and equipped with his ‘protest’ songs, Arjona began a new contract with Sony. On the Sony label, Arjona released some of his most controversial and popular albums, including Historia De Un Animal Nocturno, with the hit song “Jesus Verbo No Sustantivo.”