Frankie J is the stage name of Francisco Javier Bautista, Jr. He is a singer, songwriter and producer born in Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico on the 7th of December 1976 who has released seven studio albums of Latin inflected R&B since his solo debut in 2003.
It seems that for all the esoteric and boundary pushing records that most musicians seem to gravitate towards later in life, it’s always going to be the music that they grow up with that will come the most naturally to them. This makes Frankie J quite lucky in a strange way, since he and his family moved to San Diego, California from Tijuana, Mexico when he was two. Because of that, the music that would shape him in his most formative years would be the Latin music that his family brought over and played when he was a kid, as well as the first waves of west coast hip hop that would spawn from his neck of the woods when he was a teenager.
The combination of the two has made him one of the most consistently succesful pop stars of the 2000’s, and is still going strong to this very day. By the time he was in high school, he was already singing in talent shows across his home state, encouraged to sing as much as he could by his family. By 1997 he’d signed with Hola Recordings as a Freestyle artist by the name of Frankie Boy. His brand of dance pop was released on three compilation records but a full length album was shelved, since in 1999, Frankie joined his first group, the Mexican Cumba sensations Kumbia Kings, as their co-lead vocalist. The group saw his first taste of true success, with the group’s first album selling half a million copies and earned a nomination for Latin artist of the year at the American Music Awards.
However, Frankie wasn’t satisfied with being one of the boys in the band. By 2003 he’d signed a solo contract with Columbia Records and in the same year his first and second solo records were released to great commercial success. May saw the release of his debut, “What’s A Man To Do” and the following July was when his first Spanish language solo album “Frankie J” came out as well. 2003 proved to be a banner year for Frankie, as his debut solo single went to number 19 on the Billboard Hot 100, and the first single that he featured on after his solo debut, Baby Bash’s “Suga Suga”, went into the top ten of the same chart.
Since then, he’s had a platinum record in the form of his second English language album “The One”, a number 3 hit on the Hot 100 with “Obsession (No Es Amour)”, and has toured with fellow Latin legends Jennifer Lopez and Enrique Iglesias. While he may not get the chart hits that he regularly scored in his earlier career anymore, Frankie J is an artist that doesn’t need figures or chart placements to back him up. He’s proved himself time and time again and will continue to do so with panache and fantastic songs. Highly recommended.
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