Élan Luz Rivera, a young vivacious Puerto Rican African American New Yorker has been a professional singer, actress, and dancer for more than half her life. For Élan, singing in front of an audience started before she was out of diapers. With rattle in hand, she performed Patti Labelle’s song “Shoot ‘Em On Sight” for friends and family. As a little girl with dreams of being an artist she would act out, sing and dance to Epic Records’ release of Michael Jackson’s Thriller video. It was no wonder to her, that she would be signed as a singer songwriter by the same record label as one of her icons.
Élan started in theater at the young age of 8. She got her first taste of Hollywood scoring a small role in the film, Life With Mickey, starring Michael J Fox and Nathan Lane. Touring, commercials, jingles, recordings, live shows and TV followed. Élan made her Broadway debut in Paul Simon’s, The Capeman, playing the role of Cookie, a flirty teen Doo Wopper. While working with Marc Anthony, Ruben Blades, Ednita Nazario and many acclaimed actors and musicians in The Capeman, Élan became influenced and baptized into the Latin music world by her fellow co-workers.
When The Capeman closed, word spread about the young singer and she changed lanes to be a band member for the Platinum Salsa artists Frankie Negron and DLG’s world tour. Quickly becoming more than a background singer, Sony Latino placed Élan’s demo remake of “Sin Poderte Hablar” as a duet single on Huey Dunbar’s sophomore solo album. She accompanied former DLG singer, Huey Dunbar, on many of his promotional performances, such as Latin TV’s popular Sabado Gigante and Despierta America.
The world became her school from sharing tour schedules in Spain with greats like Willie Colon to being an academic honors student while being schooled on the road. She expanded her studies to the African dance of Ivory Coast, India’s Bharata Natyam and Odissi, and East Indian Pop Singing. With the launch of MTV Tr3s and Music Choice’s Urbano Latino TV stations, her song entitled “Dame Un Momento”, a trilingual Hindi, Spanish, and English pop song debuted and became a featured musical theme.
Her album credits range from Pokemon Soundtrack’s to Ricky Martin, while her writing credits range from Cheetah Girls “Fuego” to rap pioneer, LL Cool J on his last album Exit 13. Élan is most recently known for the international hit duet “There’s Nothin’” with Sean Kingston and The DEY single “Give You The World” inspired by Earth Wind and Fire’s Fantasy. Some know her as The “E” in The DEY, a Hip Hop bilingual trio, who in the fall of 2008 released their album The DEY Has Come, on Sony records in Japan and Asian territories. The DEY became the first Hip Hop cross over group to be allowed to perform in the grand convention halls of the still communist Hanoi, Vietnam. Internationally, she is making her way as a young female with many talents and faces. With over 10 magazine features in Japan alone, she hopes to continue the efforts of inspiring many females throughout all walks of life and cultures as she explores her solo project.
