{"id":324566,"date":"2025-10-22T19:09:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T19:09:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/324566\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T19:09:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T19:09:14","slug":"54-ultra-is-bringing-his-time-traveling-latin-soul-to-los-angeles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/324566\/","title":{"rendered":"54 Ultra is bringing his time-traveling Latin soul to Los Angeles"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If you watched 54 Ultra\u2019s music video for \u201cUpside Down\u201d<\/a> and came away thinking it was a relic from 1980s music programs like \u201cSolid Gold\u201d or \u201cNight Tracks\u201d \u2014 you\u2019d be forgiven for making the assumption.<\/p>\n

Aside from the 25-year-old\u2019s vintage wardrobe, hairstyle, and \u2018stache that harks to that decade, the song itself \u2014 a silky, boppy ballad that channels the energy of groups like the Chi-Lites or solo acts like Johnnie Taylor \u2014 sounds and feels ripped from the era in a manner that\u2019s hard to faithfully re-create these days.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

That old-school vibe isn\u2019t exactly how 54 Ultra started off when he began putting out solo music three years ago, but it\u2019s what he\u2019s settled into nowadays. The artist, whose real name is JohnAnthony Rodr\u00edguez (and yes, his name is supposed to be written together), hails from New Jersey and is of Puerto Rican and Dominican descent.<\/p>\n

The name he settled on, 54 Ultra, came by way of uniting Frank Ocean\u2019s 2011 album \u201cNostalgia, Ultra\u201d and the historic nightclub Studio 54. It was sometime between 2019 and 2020 that he interned at a few different recording studios, songwriting in his spare time with the intention of writing and producing music for others.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember I was trying to find a way to make a living out of music and introduce myself to other artists,\u201d he says over the phone, recalling all the demos he had recorded and presented to artists he\u2019d cross paths with.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople would be like \u2018Who\u2019s singing this? Who demo\u2019ed this?\u2019 And I\u2019d say \u2018It was me.\u2019 And then they\u2019d say, \u2018You keep it.\u2019 After that [happened] a couple of times I realized that I might as well put it out by myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

His first solo singles, like the high-energy \u201cWhat Do I Know (Call Me Baby)\u201d and \u201cSierra,\u201d<\/a> were firmly rooted in the indie rock family tree. It wasn\u2019t until more recently, first with \u201cWhere Are You\u201d<\/a> and later \u201cHeaven Knows,\u201d that Rodr\u00edguez began to explore a more retro and soulful approach.<\/p>\n

The latter track made an appearance in a 2024 \u201crhythm and soul\u201d playlist<\/a> curated by Mistah Cee, an Australian DJ and music selector, who included the song between Bobby Caldwell\u2019s \u201cMy Flame\u201d and Earth, Wind & Fire\u2019s \u201cDevotion.\u201d The segues between tracks are seamless, in no small part due to Rodr\u00edguez\u2019s immaculate production and fealty to the tempo of the times. His was the only contemporary track on the playlist, but it fooled many who eventually caught on to the rest of his work.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn YouTube, I remember that was a nice boost, because people would comment, \u2018Who came from Mistah Cee?\u2019 Or, \u2018Who thought this was an oldie?\u2019 or whatnot,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

To date, it\u2019s not only Mistah Cee\u2019s most viewed playlist by a wide margin (5.6 million and counting) but also 54 Ultra\u2019s most-streamed song on Spotify with 27 million. \u201cThat was a very organic wave of things happening, and I\u2019m very grateful for that also because I didn\u2019t expect [it] at all,\u201d says Rodr\u00edguez.<\/p>\n

Latin soul, of the kind that recalls the doo-wop and boogaloo era of the 1950s and \u201860s, has seen a resurgence in the past few years. Artists like Chicano Batman, Thee Sinseers, Los Yesterdays and the Altons, as well as solo acts like Jason Joshua and Adrian Quesada, have made inroads with listeners and on the radio. Rodr\u00edguez is enthusiastic about this opportunity to show different facets of Latin culture and music through this genre.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just feel like I\u2019m grateful to be a part of that family, or that idea that people relate all the music together and being a part of that scene is pretty nice,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Despite his Gen Z status, he notably lacks the \u201csmartphone face\u201d<\/a> that\u2019s rampant among pop artists and celebrities \u2014 and is partial to dressing in an anachronistic way, which he pulls off with gusto. It might be easy to assume his regular getup is a result of wanting to match the music, but Rodriguez insists he was already dressing that way much before he ever considered dabbling in soul. There is a kind of freedom he associates with the wardrobe of that time.<\/p>\n

\u201c[The clothes] were never a costume or a gimmick,\u201d he says. \u201cWhether I did music or not, I enjoyed how it fits because that [period] just has the best clothes. I think that was peak menswear. No one cared about any type of gender assignment with clothing; everybody wore what they wanted, and all the measurements were the same \u2026 it seemed like everybody had fun back then. They weren\u2019t worried so much about what people thought.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"54 <\/p>\n

\u201c[The clothes] were never a costume or a gimmick,\u201d says 54 Ultra of his vintage style.<\/p>\n

(Max Tardio)<\/p>\n

He shouts out Blood Orange, a.k.a. artist-composer Dev Hynes, as a major inspiration for him. \u201cThat\u2019s my favorite guy,\u201d he says. But at the same time, he offers an eclectic list of artists whose music lights fires for his own output; Brazilian musicians like Jorge Ben Jor, L\u00f4 Borges and Evinha have made his rotation, along with some moody \u201880s bands like the Smiths, the Cure and Siouxsie and the Banshees.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd Prefab Sprout,\u201d he adds excitedly. \u201cThat\u2019s my jam. That stuff\u2019s crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n

His reputation has grown this past year, putting him in rooms he never expected to be invited to. Earlier this year he found himself producing the song \u201cAll I Can Say\u201d for Kali Uchis, off her 2025 album, \u201cSincerely,\u201d and recently opened for her during a concert stop in San Jos\u00e9.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, he kicked off a world tour promoting his latest EP, \u201cFirst Works,\u201d that will take him from D.C. and Brooklyn to London and Paris. The schedule includes multiple stops in California, including two in Los Angeles: Oct. 26 at the Roxy Theatre and Oct. 28 at the Echoplex.<\/p>\n

For Rodr\u00edguez, a tour like this is the culmination of everything he\u2019s worked toward in his admittedly still nascent but steadily growing career. He confirms that he\u2019s been chipping away at a debut LP, which will brandish a more \u201cfast and punchy\u201d rock sound that recall his days playing basement shows.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnytime anybody asked me what I wanted to do, I would say: \u2018I want to perform anywhere I can and for anybody, wherever that may be.\u2019 I\u2019ve always wanted things to resonate, and I\u2019ve always wanted it to make sense.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you watched 54 Ultra\u2019s music video for \u201cUpside Down\u201d and came away thinking it was a relic…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":324567,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[8067,1582,276,161900,2961,224,5337,161904,975,161907,3546,161902,161903,161906,19514,6620,161905,161901,14164],"class_list":{"0":"post-324566","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-artist","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-johnanthony-rodriguez","12":"tag-la","13":"tag-los-angeles","14":"tag-losangeles","15":"tag-mistah-cee","16":"tag-music","17":"tag-past-few-year","18":"tag-people","19":"tag-playlist","20":"tag-small-part","21":"tag-solo-act","22":"tag-song","23":"tag-time","24":"tag-time-traveling-latin-soul","25":"tag-ultra","26":"tag-way"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115419399619306923","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324566\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/324567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}