Leyes (singer)

Leyes was born in the city of González Catán, in the Province of Buenos Aires on June 16, 2000, to a humble family. He was raised in Pontevedra, Buenos Aires, where he spent his childhood and adolescence.[1]

In an interview with Billboard, he stated that between the ages of thirteen and fourteen he earned fifteen pesos per sidewalk cutting the grass, and at sixteen he unsuccessfully started a clothing business. After sending resumes to different companies and businesses and receiving no response, he started reselling sneakers to make a living.[2]

After learning computer programming on his own, in 2012 he won the Dale Aceptar challenge, a programming contest aimed at young people promoted by the Argentine Ministry of Science, Technology and Productive Innovation, CESSI, the Chamber of Informatics and Communications and Sadosky Foundation.[3] From then on he began training in areas such as web development, digital marketing and e-commerce at institutions like EOI Business School, the Interactive Advertising Bureau of Spain and the universities of Alicante, Virginia, Washington and National Technological.[1]

In 2017, he was selected as a Youth Ambassador by the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Embassy in Argentina, and represented his country at the Latin American Leadership Academy entrepreneurship events in Mexico City and TrepCamp Entrepreneurial Simulator in Silicon Valley.[3] There he presented Ecompromiso, an environmental recycling and waste separation project he developed at his school.[4]

While in college he founded the jewelry company Team Leyes, and a year later created the advertising agency Leyes Media.[5]

Team Leyes, his jewelry brand that started with an initial investment of 20 000 Argentine pesos,[6] managed to position itself mainly in the urban music scene and design for celebrities like Khea, Seven Kayne, Ecko and Alex Caniggia, among others.[1][5]

Based in the city of Miami, in 2020 he served as a judge at the Entrepreneur Magazine Awards, an event held by Entrepreneur magazine dedicated to recognizing businessmen and startups.[7] The same year, he founded Ayudar, an app launched "with the purpose of connecting volunteers and vulnerable people in one place" to promote collaboration in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.[8]

After attending a concert by Colombian artist J Balvin at the Movistar Arena, Leyes decided to start a career in urban music,[2] and in 2019 he improvised a recording studio in his home in Pontevedra to produce his own music. Two years later he released his first single, titled "Pichaera" in collaboration with artist J Gonz.[9] In 2022 he released his second single titled "Tímida", recorded in the city of Miami,[10] followed by "Mejores Amigos" and "Ladrón", the latter with the collaboration of Kinginz.[11][12] Both musicians performed at the Faena Theater in Miami as part of Billboard Latin Music Week, held between September and October 2022.[13]

Leyes founded an artist collective known as Los Reyes, formed by Kinginz, Nico Jaffe and Paloma Leyes.[14][15] In 2023 he released the singles "Me Pegué" and "Va A Perrear", the latter again with Kinginz,[16]. The songs "Me Pegué" and "Tímida", in which he collaborated with the collective Los Reyes, ranked 70th and 53rd respectively in the Spotify charts in Cali, Colombia.[17] Likewise, "La Dura" ranked 14th in the weekly ranking in Cali,[18] while "Comerte Entera" ranked 21st in Medellín and 25th in Cali.[19][20]