Prince Royce

Bronx-born Prince Royce has redefined bachata in the 21st century, blending the traditional Dominican dance music with hip-hop swagger and using his silky-smooth vocals to give even the hardest beats a romantic edge. Opening his 2010 debut with a bilingual cover of Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me”—which added arpeggiated guitars and his honeyed voice to the soul classic—was a signal flare that Royce intended his vision of bachata to be timeless. His original songs bring his wide-ranging tastes and hunger for storytelling to the fore, whether they’re emotional ballads like the conflicted “Darte un Beso” or stretched-out laments like the brooding “Dec. 21,” while his trap-tinged 2020 cover of UK garage star Craig David’s smash “Fill Me In” showed how his influences come from all over the world. “When I first started,” Royce told Apple Music, “I didn’t know if someone was going to hear my songs. It was all about just writing poetic lyrics, great music with feeling.” Royce has attained worldwide reach with an approach that’s firmly rooted in his native soil—a romance-minded fusion of classic and modern Latin music that brings new growth to both sets of sounds.