Myke Towers
FROM Río Piedras, Puerto Rico
AGE 27
LABEL Whiteworld Music/Warner
FOUNDATION Myke Towers (born Michael Torres) learned to rap on the basketball courts in Río Piedras when he was a kid who delivered papers to make money. He was inspired by reggaetón duos Zion & Lennox and Wisin y Yandel, though later took cues from underground rappers like Venezuela’s Canserbero. By 19, Towers began uploading his own lyricsdriven music to SoundCloud. He says writing with pen and paper helps:
“Seeing a blank sheet and extracting something from it is a challenge.”
DISCOVERY In 2018, after a lackluster stint with an independent label,
Towers felt he had hit a dead end, so he approached Orlando “Jova” Cepeda and José “Tito” Reyes, founding partners of the Puerto Ricobased label/production/management company Whiteworld Music. “We saw an original, humble, focused artist,” says Reyes. “He was underestimated, like an ugly duckling,” adds Cepeda. “He was the opposite of the [reggaetón] genre. Quiet. We steered him toward music people wanted to hear.” Towers says their belief in his skill was transformative. “It doesn’t matter how much talent you have.
You need structure.” In February, after a two-year courtship, Warner Latina and Warner Records jointly signed Towers through Whiteworld to a global distribution deal that Warner Records co-chairman/COO Tom Corson called “one of our most important signings of the past year.”
FUTURE Coming in the fall is Michael, Towers’ fourth album, that he says is more “sentimental” than April’s Lyke Mike, which explored hip-hop, trap and drill. To continue refining and diversifying his sound, he has been working with producers like Ovy on the Drums and Sky Rompiendo (Karol G and J Balvin, respectively) in addition to regular collaborators like Fara. He expects to tour before the year ends and already has plans for a third album this year to create a trilogy. “I’ve made it clear I can play two musical extremes, but I’m [still] on the rise,” says Towers. “A lot of people don’t think I’ve arrived yet.”