FREE TEMPO

David Sánchez Badillo, AKA “Tempo”, the most iconic figure in the young history of urban Latin music, was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico. He was raised with his two younger sisters, Jessica and Daimar, in the Lirios Del Sur housing project, in the southern city of the Island. There he went to school and studied during a semester at the Escuela Libre de Música (Public School of Music) -- it was evident then that Tempo had the gift of rhythm and prose.
Tempo’s parents divorced when he was four years old, and for the next decade Tempo straddled Puerto Rico and New York City, living alternately with his mother and his father’s mother.
The colliding influence of these two worlds congealed in 1989, when at age eleven, Tempo started to flow the reality of the streets over deliriously percussive Hip Hop beats.
Tempo moved to Orlando, Florida when he was eighteen rolling with Ghetto, Tom “MAS” Weisman and various street gangs, while perfecting a unique blend of Reggaeton and Hip Hop.
Encouraged by DJ Playero and Mexicano, Tempo went back to Puerto Rico where he built a devoted fan base to whom he was and is more than just another performer, but also a leader whose perspective they share. At this time, to see Tempo live was to see idols like Biggie and Tupac.
Tempo recorded the seminal “Game Over” and “New Game” albums In DJ Playero’s studio, while in his early twenties. On these records Tempo defined himself as an articulate spokesperson for the dispossessed. At a time when Urban Latin Music was not even envisioned, both productions were certified Gold by the RIAA.
Tempo’s increasing artistic and commercial influence is evidenced by the multi-Platinum success of the compilation album “Buddha’s Family” on which Tempo was the featured artist, and the subsequent release “Tempo Exitos,” a best selling compilation of his greatest hits. The albums included important collaborations with the producers Echo, MAS, Mexicano and DJ Black that defined the future of urban Latin music.
Tempo was incarcerated in 2002; charged and later convicted, on purely circumstantial evidence, of conspiracy to distribute an ungodly and totally preposterous amount of hard drugs. This was not a case of gangster life catching up with Tempo, but the Feds taking their frustrations at not being able to contain and control the real gangsters.
Since his incarceration, the genre Tempo helped create has exploded, and brought with it stars such as Daddy Yankee, Tego Calderón and Don Omar. Yet Tempo’s star shines brightest to the core fans, perhaps because his tongue is sharpest, his prose real and believable, his anger shared, his fortitude verified, his humanity obvious and because his heart is always open to his people. His fans empathy was attested by the tumultuous response to his appearance (direct from the Federal Courthouse in San Juan, PR) in the massively successful CD/DVD, The Chosen Few ‘El Documental’.
On June 30th 2009 Tempo will release an extraordinary album and documentary DVD containing angry, unrepentant, unapologetic, and revolutionary unreleased material in collaboration with many of urban music’s most influential artists.
In 2009 Tempo will take his rightful place at the top of urban music’s pantheon of stars. In 2009, with all of our help, Tempo will be free.