Miky Woodz

Miky Woodz may have come to music late, but he’s a rapper’s rapper—and he’s got the neck beard to prove it. Woodz is one of those rare artists who has made few concessions to fashion but has found a home on the charts nevertheless. Born Miguel Ángel Rivera Rodríguez in Carolina, Puerto Rico, in 1991, Woodz started out as a basketball player who dreamed of the NBA and was studying at Penn State University with an eye toward that goal. But when he was forced to move back home for financial reasons, his attention shifted from sports to the music he’d loved working out to so much: hip-hop. A devotee of Meek Mill and Wiz Khalifa, Woodz began to try his hand at freestyling and discovered a raw, unvarnished voice that quickly made him a darling of the underground. By the mid-2010s he was showing up on tracks by El Alfa, Bad Bunny and others. The title of his 2017 debut, Before Famous, quickly became obsolete as Woodz’ album flew up the Latin Album Sales chart on the strength of songs like the carpe diem anthem “Antes de Morirme”. In 2018, EL OG repeated the trick, and 2019’s Cambio de Clima EP with Bryant Myers reinforced his gritty cred while also making overtures to lovers of romance. But if fans feared he’d throw over rap entirely for a poppier sound, they were wrong: 2020’s Los 90 Piketes proved that this master of the flow is committed to keeping it real, no matter the genre.