He's not vintage, he just sounds that way: 54 Ultra finds his vibe

The artist brings his time-traveling songs (and look) to the Echoplex.

- BY JUAN J. ARROYO

Photographs by MAX TARDIO 25-YEAR-OLD John Anthony Rodríguez, a.k.a. 54 Ultra, is part of a recent resurgence of Latin soul music.

If you watched 54 Ultra’s music video for “Upside Down” and came away thinking it was a relic from 1980s music programs like “Solid Gold” or “Night Tracks” — you'd be forgiven for making the assumption.

Aside from the 25-year-old’s vintage wardrobe, hairstyle, and ’stache that harks to that decade, the song itself — a silky, boppy ballad that channels the energy of groups like the Chi-Lites or solo acts like Johnnie Taylor — sounds and feels ripped from the era in a manner that’s hard to faithfully recreate these days.

That old-school vibe isn't exactly how 54 Ultra started off when he began putting out solo music three years ago, but it’s what he’s settled into nowadays. The artist, whose real name is JohnAnthony Rodriguez (and yes, his name is supposed to be written together), hails from New Jersey and is of Puerto Rican and Dominican descent.

The name he settled on, 54 Ultra, came by way of uniting Frank Ocean's 2011 album “Nostalgia, Ultra” and the historic nightclub Studio 54. It was sometime between 2019 and 2020 that he interned at a few different recording studios, songwriting in his spare time with the intention of writing and producing music for others.

“I remember I was trying to find a way to make a living out of music and introduce myself to other artists,” he says over the phone, recalling all the demos he had recorded and presented to artists he'd cross paths with.

“People would be like ‘Who's singing this? Who demo’d this?’ And I'd say ‘It was me.’ And then they'd say, ‘You keep it.’ After that [happened] a couple of times I realized that I might as well put it out by myself.”