Boy Wonder

Born in Brooklyn, raised in Long Island City, by a Dominican, Puerto Rican mom, who mixed Michael Jackson, and the Beatles with her Bachata, Manuel Alejandro Ruiz, AKA Boy Wonder:“liked everything that my [his] mother liked, but I thought it might all sound better with a little Hip Hop sprinkled in.” In 6th grade Boy Wonder began to hype Kahreem a talented rapper who doubled up as his best friend to battle. Kahreem and Boy Wonder organized Hip Hop battles in the school lunchroom over beats made of spoons, glasses, and closed fisted thumps on the lunch-tables. The bond with Kahreem was strong and lasted well beyond high school, but the ending ultimately tragic. Having invested all of his money in a set of Kahreem demos that were universally well received, Boy Wonder lost his friend to drugs and then schizophrenia. “My dreams were in pieces, but that was nothing – Kahreem was in a mental hospital, his life destroyed. I learned perspective – that success is important BUT NOT AT ALL COSTS.” Unsure of his next step, Wonder reached out to his uncle July Ruiz, a Grammy Award winning sound engineer, who introduced him to “Double P Music,” who were producing the [Hip Hop] influenced new music for “Ilegales,” “Sandy y Papo” and “Proyecto Uno.” “It was crazy, here were Latinos making new sounds, not just imitating what had come before, or ripping beats. I had seen the future!” A visit to the Dominican Republic, during which Wonder was soaked in monsoon rains and Latin Hip Hop, proved to be the stimulus he needed to move beyond Kahreem’s pain. “As soon as I got back to New York I started my own production company; “Chosen Few / Emerald Entertainment --- CHOSEN FEW, because it was the name of my posse at school and EMERALD, because it is my birthstone and it means love and success, something that I wantedfor my colleagues.” The first successful CHOSEN FEW production a remix of the Shakira hit “Mi Vida” was an underground hit, but the strongest hint of the success to come came with the release of “Pocos Elegidos,” a compilation CD that included some of the hottest Reggaeton releases of 2003; “Reggaeton was underground for almost 10 years, and then, all of a sudden it exploded. I think it was a combination of things, the kids were looking for something new and the records kept getting better. I’d had success with Pocos Elegidos, and NYC-Sex – a record that made the crazy parallel between Reggaeton and sex, but I was looking for something more. A project that wouldrecognize, explain and define Reggaeton and Latin Hip Hop.” Which brings us to the present day: “I was introduced to Adam Kidron at UBO, and I told him my idea, to film a documentary, and record the soundtrack of Reggaeton, and release them URBAN BOX OFFICE, INC. together, in a package that would change the world. Adam didn’t take much convincing, because the UBO FREEDOM model is all about bringing music to the people [Música Pa Mi Gente, they call it] so they flipped out over the idea of capturing a whole culture and then packaging it together so kids would only have to pay . The incredible thing was how the artists responded; the documentary features all of the greats - Don Omar, Tego Calderon, Daddy Yankee, Vico C, Eddie D, incredible footage of Tempo from the Federal Courthouse in San Juan and more than 100 other artist features, and the soundtrack has 25 incredible tracks from artists as diverse as Don Omar, Voltio, Zion Y Lennox, and N.O.R.E. I am the kind of person that is driven by passion, and I am so passionate about music that I know I am never gonna stop recording, but if I did – If something terrible and unexpected were to happen to me tomorrow, I would be in peace, because we made the Chosen Few, and did it the right way – with love and respect.”

Record Label - Type

Chosen Few Emerald - Independent