The Official MySpace Page of Rico Santana

RICO SANTANA Born in the rough streets of Hamilton, Ohio, Rico Santana grew up in a working class neighborhood; were he was highly influenced by the sounds of his late Uncle Roger Troutman and the Zapp Band. He is the son of a factory worker and a hard working mother who took care of him and his 3 brothers. Rico found hip-hop to be his calling in the early 90’s with the great sounds of Common Sense and EPMD as his platform. Santana went on tour with R. Kelly and the public announcement, Tony Terry, and several other artists and that’s when he knew music would be his life. He joined the group Storm Coalition where he began to develop his smooth slow flow. While moving around the country as a child Rico was able to take some of his style from D.C and New York. During his youth, Santana saw lots of gang violence in the streets of his “hood”, where there where many option of selling drugs and doing unthinkable crimes. But with a strong family backing Rico decided the world needed to see or hear him. He wrote his first rap a junior high talent show and caught the entertainment bug. He was known as Showtime, Coco, Bedrock, Reek G, amongst his peers. Rico played several sports as a child which he believes saved his life. In the year 2000 Santana took his chance at stardom and moved to Los Angeles where he worked on films such as Training Day, The Italian Job, Freaky Friday as well as appearing in several T.V. shows like E.R., Will & Grace, CSI, The Rob Nelson Show and the hit reality show The 5th Wheel. While living in Denmark and Italy Rico slowly began to understand the worldly aspect of hip-hop and knew he had to be apart of it. He took his chances at opening a hip-hop club in the city of Copenhagen, Denmark. This was short-lived because Santana knew he had to get back to the states and work on his craft. Rico moved to Minneapolis in 2003 where he hooked up with Steven “Peoplez” Bickes and started to develop the Midwest hip-hop sound. Peoplez and Santana seemed to be a strong team so Peoplez introduced him to Yung Floce, Ghost, and ROC to form a powerhouse group now known as The Goon Squad Clique in conjunction with La Familia Ent. and City Life Ent. Rico Santana has worked his whole life to become a hip-hop star and will continue to strive to put the Midwest sound on the map. With many soul influences such as Shirley Murdock, Bootsy Collins, Rufus Troutman III, and The Ohio Players, Santana is sure to take the music industry by storm.