El Compa Chuy

El Compa Chuy is the stage name of Jesús Alfredo Rodríguez Hernández, a recording artist from Culiacán, the capital city of Mexico's Sinaloa state. Rodríguez has become a regional sensation singing corridos -- a narrative folk song that normally has a protagonist and a plot, and ends with a moral from the singer. His songs mainly feature just an arrangement between his vocals, accordion, guitar, and tuba. Rodríguez came from a musical family and began singing corridos privately at an early age. At the age of 14, he became more involved in Culiacán's artistic scene and bought a sound system to rent out to musicians and bands. One such band, forced to practice without their singer for the day, overheard Rodríguez singing along to their songs under his breath as he walked past and asked him to sing with them. Rodríguez soon became a fixture on the Culiacán music scene, singing for a number of groups. After a stint in America where he worked in a squid packaging plant in California and a car wash in Phoenix, AZ while singing on the side, Sony Music signed Rodríguez to their Latin division. In March of 2008 he released Alacrana Lavada. A year later came El Niño de Oro, another full-length that featured his hit song "El Corrido de Katch," a cover of an Alfredo Rios narco corrido (corridos about the drug trade that's so prevalent in northern Mexico; Sinaloa and Culiacán, especially) that celebrates the flashy clothes and expensive tastes of its protagonist. The song debuted on the Billboard Latin Songs chart at number 43 and peaked at number four. His third album, Gente Peligrosa came out on October 20, 2009.