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About Me

Joined: December 16, 2009
Last signed in: May 31, 2010

YOMO, the urban poet The word “yomo” stands for a samurai warrior, highly disciplined and willing to go to battle. Those are exactly the virtues that describe José Alberto Torres Abreu, born in Chicago to a Puerto Rican family, and set on taking his name, his urban music and his lifestyle to a higher level, one where he would eventually see his name embedded in gold. Thus, he adopted this Japanese sobriquet. Yomo’s history is like that of millions of sons and daughters of immigrants who come to the United States. For family reasons, at the age of three, he had to leave this country to live with his grandmother in the town of Humacao, in Puerto Rico. It was there where he learned about the beauty of the countryside, the richness of a simple life and the unconditional bonds of family. Although his father abandoned Yomo and his two older brothers when they were just children, the artist recognizes that it is to his father to whom he owes his musical legacy. “He would always sing to me before I would go to bed. I never forgot that,” remembers the singer. Yomo’s mother worked hard to send her children to school and to take care of the three boys, something that profoundly touched the rapper’s soul. Now he constantly finds inspiration in his mother when writing songs. “I was always very melancholic, a lonely boy, and that’s why music become a way to express myself. I spent my life singing and rehearsing as if one day I would be talking to the press,” says the artist. Yomo’s talent began to appear rather quickly; he was still in elementary school when he had the opportunity to record his first rap, which made it all the way to Washington. “I remember that it was a rap that my teacher wrote about math. I recorded it as a song and it was a presented at a fair in D.C.,” he says. He developed his unique voice by participating in school fairs and in any other event he could attend. He also realized that the lyrics came to him naturally; thus, he began to write his own songs, joining the burgeoning underground scene of urban music in Puerto Rico. Towards the end of the 1990s, Yomo moved to New York City, where he soaked up all the musical influences at the time. After a while, he returned to Puerto Rico with an accumulation of new experiences, but still not quite part of the professional music scene. In fact, he decided to work as a handyman, without realizing that here he would find the angels that would help him make his dreams come true. “While cleaning and doing my daily chores, I would sing. One of my bosses, Salazar, would have me mop the floors just so he could hear me sing. One day, he and my work colleagues asked me, ‘What do you need to get started in the music business?’ ‘A demo,’ I said. That cost $300, and so they collected the money. And that’s how it happened.” With those $300, Yomo recorded three songs that signaled a before and an after in his nascent career. One of those songs is My Destiny, which is part of his newest album, titled the same, and dedicated to Mandito, one of his best friends from childhood who later on died in an auto accident. “I’ve gone back to that song after many years because it is an important part of my life, and in this album, it appears just as it was recorded in the demo.” As part of the underground urban scene, OG Black and Master Joe discovered this talented young man who transmitted something different. They immediately invited him to join their concert tours in Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and several cities in the United States. Later on, during an event at a school, one of reggaetón’s biggest stars, Héctor El Father, saw Yomo and decided to sign him to his record label, Gold Star. Yomo was one of the highlights of the album Sangre Nueva, with the song Déjale caer to’ el peso, which to this day is a staple at the many venues he visits and which shot to the top on the Billboard music charts, turning him into one of urban music’s new revelations. Yomo has been invited by artists such as Víctor Manuelle, Fat Joe, Wisin & Yandel and Daddy Yankee, among others, to be a part of their albums and live concerts. A few years back, the Black Pearl record label recognized his tremendous potential: genuine, with a very promising future, untouched by scandal (something that characterizes so many artists in the genre), and setting himself apart with his profound, real, and stylish lyrics. The record label signed him right away, contributing all the energy and resources his career needed at the moment. Together, they launched My Destiny, Yomo’s debut album as a soloist, its title written in gold letters, just as he had dreamt while growing up. Songs such as Tú te la traes, Descará, Eje Eje, to name a few, have left their mark among urban music fans. But he wants more. “I have gone through a lot of difficult moments, but whenever I experience one of them, I remember the people that helped me at one time or another, and I do whatever it takes so as not to fail them. When things get tough, I perform my best,” he explains. Yomo, a street poet, a self-made artist… a western samurai.

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