Ricardo Naranjo, also known as Boy Junior, was born from a music influenced family. He used to sit back and watch his father play the trumpet and take the stage with the group, “Archivo Musical.”
The response of the crowd and aura of the band created the spark that ignited Naranjo’s passion towards music. Naranjo got his hands on as much hip hop music as he could.
“As soon as I was able to think on my own, I was into it. My infatuation of rap music got me into music from N.W.A, Run DMC and Grand Master Flash,” said Naranjo. “I grew up listening to all of these R&B; groups to get the feel of it.”
Naranjo started taking rapping seriously after he enrolled in Fullerton College’s recording production certificate program. He learned how to make and record music with programs like Pro Tools 9 and Logic 9. His mentors were Marcus Burger and Dana Parker of the electronic music program and John Tomlinson and Scott Ragotskie of the recording production program.
“When it come to productions, Boy Junior is right on top of things. He knows what he wants and does it right, that’s what I like about working with him,” said Effin Gallo, producer.
Fullerton College helped Naranjo get the spark he needed to make music beats and to put his lyricial thought together. Two years in the rap game, he was able to brand himself has a rapper on his deut LP “One Time.” He concorted rhymes and beats that reminiscent of his boyhood idol Dr Dre.
He received an enthusiastic response from his debut release and that is when Naranjo realized that many artists would be happy with such an initial response. His goal is to go further and reach more fans, hoping to expand across the globe and into every ear that could be reached.
“Boy Junior is a hard-worker and I love that about him. It makes me do a better job on my vocals,” said Katina.
His follow up EP, “Free the Mind” features production work from Gallo and vocal stylings of Katina and Lucy Lou. The first single off this album, “West Coast Love” and his second single, “Forgive EM” was released on Youtube where he received a lot of responses from his fans. Boy Junior has taken the world by surprise with another amazing piece of art.
“Being from Japan, music is on the raise with rap. Boy Junior has a lot of fans that have his music. They feel really good about what he raps about,” said Lou.
Boy Junior is keeping the details of his third album hush, hush for now; but it is expected to be better than both albums.
Naranjo is currently working on his third album but is keeping it hush, hush for now.
“When I was performing in Whittier, Calif., the crowd showed me so much love,” said Naranjo. “I just figured I’d show a little love back with my music…Boy Junior is my name and rapping is my game. I want to give my fans two hours of good music during my shows because without them, there would be no Boy Junior.”
